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Three teenage girls
jailed for a crime they did not commit were offered compensation packages of
about $160,000, Justice Minister Phil Goff said today. Lucy Akatere and Tania
Vini were offered $135,000 each, and McCushla Fuataha was offered $137,500.
Other components took the total packages to about $160,000 each. However, the girls had
each rejected the offer, with their lawyer indicating the $1 million paid to
Arthur Allan Thomas, who was wrongly convicted of double murder, should be
used as a benchmark. Gary Gotlieb has filed
a claim in the High Court at Auckland challenging the way the figure was
arrived at and asking the court to decide what was appropriate. The girls each served
seven months in prison after being jointly convicted of an aggravated robbery
in Three Kings in August 1999. Lucy Akatere was aged
15 at the time and her co-accused were aged 14. The case was reopened
after a witness admitted she lied and the three were proven to have been
nowhere near the scene of the attack. The Court of Appeal
overturned the convictions in 2001 and told the girls: "We offer our
sympathy." Mr Goff today said he
regretted the girls had rejected the offer, which was recommended by
Wellington QC Kristy McDonald based on government criteria. "That criteria
applies to all people who have suffered this kind of miscarriage of justice,
and that was known in advance by the girls' counsel. "The Government
continues to believe it is a fair and appropriate offer and we will
vigorously defend the court action being taken." The girls have
described the offer as "seriously inadequate and unlawful". They claim government
guidelines used to reach the compensation figure are "unlawful,
irrational and unfair" and that they were not correctly applied in
reaching the recommended amounts. The girls want the
court to declare the recommendations unlawful and invalid, and quash them. |
