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Focus on
Police Competence |
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Three teenage girls
convicted of a crime they did not commit would receive money for counselling
as part of their total compensation, Justice Minister Phil Goff said
yesterday. He had received a
preliminary application for compensation for the three teenagers. "I have made an
initial decision that payment should be available for counselling of those
young women," he told a committee of MPs. "I think the state
of mind that they were left in after eight months' imprisonment in Mt Eden
for a crime that they were found not to be responsible for by the police
means that we have to try to help them rebuild their lives." He has appointed Kristy
McDonald, QC, to determine the degree of innocence and decide what level of
compensation should be paid for financial and non-financial losses the girls
suffered. Tania Vini and Lucy
Akatere, both 17, and McCushla Fuataha, 16, were wrongfully jailed in 1999
after they were convicted of an aggravated robbery in the Auckland suburb of
Three Kings. They were freed when an Auckland lawyer and a private
investigator persuaded police to reopen their case. The Court of Appeal
later overturned the conviction and offered the girls "sympathy". The court was told that
after their trial, the Crown's principal witness, a 13-year-old girl,
retracted her evidence by affidavit. She had claimed she and the three older
girls attacked a 16-year-old schoolgirl at Three Kings Plaza and robbed her
of $10. Police apologised to the girls but their lawyer Gary Gotlieb said the
girls deserved compensation as the time they spent in prison had changed their
lives and seriously damaged their education. -- |
