The late Ida Hawkins with a photograph of her daughter, Colleen Burrows, 16, who was murdered in 1987. Photo / NZME
The late Ida Hawkins with a photograph of her daughter, Colleen Burrows, 16, who was murdered in 1987. Photo / NZME
Murdered 16-year-old Colleen Burrows’ family is engaged in a legal fight with one of her killers over a $15,000 damages award.
The latest Court of Appeal decision has been determined in favour of Ida Hawkins, Colleen’s mother.
The case is being continued by Colleen’s sister after Ida Hawkins died last year.
The family of murdered 16-year-old Colleen Burrows has managed to keep alive a long-running legal fight with one of her killers over who should keep $15,000 awarded in a damages claim.
But even 38 years after Colleen’s death, the campaign is not yet over and their interim victory comes too late for her mother, Ida Hawkins, who died last year.
Colleen Burrows was on her way to buy takeaways in Napier in 1987 when she was picked up by two men associated with the Mongrel Mob, raped and brutally murdered.
Her body was found on the banks of the Tūtaekurī River the following day.
One of her killers, Sam Te Hei, was sentenced to life imprisonment and served 31 years before being freed on parole in 2018. Hawkins opposed his release.
In 2020, Te Hei reached a settlement with the Crown awarding him $17,664 for breaches of his rights while in jail.
The Victims’ Special Claims Tribunal, which determines claims under the PVC Act, upheld her claim and ordered that $15,000 be paid to Hawkins for emotional harm.
Te Hei appealed that successfully to the High Court on the argument that another piece of legislation – the Deaths by Accidents Compensation Act 1952 – did not create a right to damages for emotional harm, and this was not available under the general law either.
A photograph of Colleen Burrows at a commemoration in 2005 at the site where her body was found on the banks of the Tūtaekurī River near Napier. Photo / NZME
After Te Hei won that round, Hawkins appealed the High Court’s decision to the Court of Appeal.
The principal issue she took to the appeal court was whether she was indeed entitled to damages for her grief and emotional harm, or if exemplary damages were available instead. If so, then she was entitled to compensation under the PVC Act.
Sadly, Hawkins died aged 70 in July 2024, just over a month after the Court of Appeal heard her case and before its justices had delivered their reserved decision.
Hawkins’ daughter, and Colleen’s sister, Tracey Peka, then obtained a court order allowing her to continue the legal fight as the personal representative of her mother’s estate.
The Court of Appeal decision was released this week, with the largely technical 34-page judgment still referring to the case as being that of the late Ida Hawkins.
It represented a win for the family in the sense that it upheld their appeal, and kept their case alive, even as it found against some of their arguments.
The court said that Hawkins did not have a claim under the Deaths by Accident Compensation Act for her emotional injury.
Nor could she make a wrongful death claim under common law, and the PVC Act did not provide a standalone basis for her claim either.
However, the justices said: “We have … concluded that Mrs Hawkins may have a common law claim for her mental injury arising from the circumstances of the rape and death of her daughter Colleen.
“If she does, it appears that such a claim would be confined to exemplary damages.”
Exemplary damages are damages intended to punish someone for their conduct.
The decision noted that Hawkins had been harassed and intimidated by members of the Mongrel Mob after her daughter was killed, and became a recluse.
She would not let her surviving children go to school and barely left the house, even to go to the shops.
Successive court decisions do not dispute that Hawkins suffered mental injury as a result of what happened to her daughter. The question has been whether she was entitled to the $15,000 from the money that had been awarded to Te Hei.
Following the decision, Nikki Pender, counsel for Hawkins, and now Tracey Peka, told NZME the claim had been thwarted until now.
“Most people would think that, surely, a mother whose daughter has been murdered has a cause of action against the man who murdered her, just as a matter of principle,” Pender said.
“That’s really what it comes down to.
“But … [her claim] has been thwarted because the law does not appear to recognise any right for this to happen, which is the principle which is being challenged.”
The latest decision is not the final say in the matter. It has not determined if the $15,000 should be paid to Hawkins’ estate.
The Court of Appeal referred the matter back to the Victims’ Special Claims Tribunal which heard the case in the first place.
The court said it was sending the case back to the tribunal for “reconsideration” in light of its decision.
“The procedure adopted by the tribunal on any such reconsideration will of course be a matter for it,” the decision said.
“It may, however, be a situation where further evidence might be sought and written submissions called for, and this may be an appropriate case for an oral hearing given the complexities of the law involved.”
Te Hei was 25 years old when he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1987.
His co-offender, Tad Kotahi Sullivan, was 19 and was released in 1998.
Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME’s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke’s Bay. His writing in the crime and justice sphere is informed by four years of front-line experience as a probation officer.
