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Focus on
Police Competence |
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The three Auckland
girls who spent seven months in prison for a crime they did not commit are
not happy with a Government compensation offer. Their lawyer Gary Gotlieb
describes it as woefully inadequate. We've not been told what the offer is or
what the trio expect, although Mr Gotlieb has mentioned hundreds of thousands
of dollars and also that the $1 million granted Arthur Allan Thomas was
"to some degree" the benchmark. So, what is seven
months in jail for 14 and 15-year-olds, a stressful year before that and the
ongoing damage of the experience worth in today's money? The Arthur Allan Thomas
example is not comparable. His 1980 compensation is probably worth twice what
it was then, but he served 10 years in prison, was framed by police and twice
convicted, and because no one else was ever charged with the Crewe murders he
lives life not guilty but, in some eyes, not innocent either. Not $2 million then. What about $868,728,
the amount David Dougherty got in 2001 for spending three-and-a-half years in
jail for a rape he did not commit? Again, one has to take into account the
time before the case and the stigma afterwards. He says people still
considered him guilty of the 1992 rape until Nicholas Reekie was charged with
it last year. That's 10 years of his life. What other comparisons?
Nine prisoners have been compensated by the state for being kept in jail
beyond their release dates. One man convicted of a vicious assault got
$42,000 for an extra 129 days. The girls deserve more than
this. Four gang members
received $250,000 in compensation between them after ill-treatment by warders
at Mangaroa Prison (yep, more than this too) and three years ago an Auckland
man received $570,000 for being wrongly jailed for sexually violating his
children (nope, not this much). In the civil arena, 23
men sexually abused at a Catholic residential school have accepted
compensation of between $30,000 and $100,000 each. Thirty-three others have
yet to decide on their offers. Which leaves us where with
the Auckland girls? There are some things we don't know. How much did jail
affect them? To what extent has their education been compromised? How are
they viewed in their community today? Despite those unknowns,
and given other precedents, how does $150,000 apiece sound, after costs?
Short of this the Government appears stingy, beyond it the girls greedy. |
