The retired Court of Appeal judge who headed the Havelock North Water Contamination Inquiry was among those recognised in the New Year Honours announced last Thursday.
Justice Lynton Stevens, QC, of Auckland, has been made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (CNZM).
The inquiry was established after a campylobacter outbreak in mid-August 2016, causing up to four deaths, with at least 5000 falling ill, was traced to two Brookvale Rd bores in the supply system.
An inquiry ordered by the Government and held in Hastings issued a report in December 2017 highlighting failures and water supply shortcomings both locally and nationally and recommended mandatory treatment of all public drinking water supplies in New Zealand and called for the establishment of a dedicated drinking water regulatory authority.
An Auckland Grammar School old boy and a 1970 graduate of the University of Auckland Law School, Stevens was appointed a Queen's Counsel in 1997, a High Court judge in 2006 and Judge of the Court of Appeal in 2010. He retired earlier in the year of the contamination crisis.
