Paora Sweeney gave evidence to the Abuse in Care Royal Commission in 2022. Photo / Supplied
A reformed criminal who went from being a patched Mongrel Mob member to a qualified prison drug counsellor lost his job after a manager unlawfully cancelled his access to the jail, has now failed to win compensation.
Paora Sweeney, who turned his life around 30 years ago, sought $370,000 in damages for having his “specified visitor” access to Spring Hill Corrections Facility cancelled.
He said he was entitled to be compensated for lost wages and employment opportunities.
Within that amount, he also sought $100,000 in general damages to reflect “distress, humiliation and hurt”.
Sweeney then sought an additional $325,000 and a marae-based apology from the prison manager for “unjustified injury” to his mana, or standing, bringing his claims to nearly $700,000.
However, all parts of Sweeney’s application have been rejected by a High Court judge, who said a successful claim for injury to mana would open up a new cause of action - or tort - that had never before been recognised by a New Zealand court.
Sweeney was employed by Care NZ to work as an addiction counsellor in Spring Hill, one of the country’s biggest prisons, between 2014 and 2016.
Sweeney was formerly a patched Mongrel Mob member with a significant criminal history who had served several terms of imprisonment himself.
However, by the time he was appointed to work in the Waikato prison, he had long turned his life around.
He had been alcohol and drug-free for about 30 years and had received no convictions since 1991, apart from a driving offence that was the result of an accident.
“One of the qualities that made Mr Sweeney suited to the role of an addiction counsellor was that he had suffered from major addiction issues himself when he was younger,” High Court Justice Graham Lang said.
Justice Lang said that Sweeney’s background and the way he resolved those issues “gave him the ability to relate to prisoners” in a way that might not be possible for people without those experiences.
But trouble arose for Sweeney after he shared a Facebook post in April 2016 related to the death of his former gang “brother”, Roy “Bulldog” Dunn, who founded the Mongrel Mob’s Notorious chapter in Māngere.
Sweeney also shared video of Dunn’s tangi, which had been attended by community leaders including the then Minister of Education Hekia Parata.
A Corrections intelligence officer noticed Sweeney’s posts, and informed prison director Christopher Lightbown, who then cancelled his visitor access to the prison.
Sweeney launched court proceedings and won, with Justice Matthew Palmer finding in 2021 that while the revocation of access did not breach his right to natural justice, it was unreasonable “and therefore unlawful”.
Justice Palmer said Sweeney had dedicated his life to helping others, yet Corrections’ decision “tarred his present with his past” and “unjustifiably impugned his mana”.
In the latest High Court application, before Justice Lang, Sweeney sought compensation.
Care NZ’s contract with Corrections expired on March 31, 2017. Sweeney did not get another comparable job until November 2020, but Justice Lang said this was for a variety of reasons, none of which related to the revocation decision.
The judge accepted that Sweeney suffered considerable distress, humiliation and hurt as a result of Lightbown’s decision, but there was no evidence that Corrections communicated about it beyond its own staff and Sweeney’s immediate supervisor at Care NZ.
“Further, Mr Sweeney has not given or called evidence to establish that the revocation caused him to be viewed in a negative light by others,” Justice Lang said.
“The claim therefore relates to the effect that the revocation has had for Mr Sweeney in his own mind.”
The judge said that even if the first two claims had been successful, he would only have awarded $22,231 for lost earnings, and $15,000 for distress, humiliation and hurt.
Justice Lang said the claim based on unjustified injury to Sweeney’s mana faced “significant legal and factual obstacles”.
“Mr Sweeney is asking the court to confirm the existence of a tortious cause of action that have never been recognised by the courts in New Zealand to date,” he said.
A tortious cause of action, or a tort, involves something which causes harm to a person, who can then seek redress or compensation. Torts sit within common law, rather than under statutes.
Justice Lang said a plaintiff in Sweeney’s position already had the ability under existing law to challenge and obtain remedies for wrongful official actions - as Sweeney had done by advancing a primary cause of action based on malfeasance in public office.
He also said an order requiring Lightbown to deliver an apology on Sweeney’s marae was also “problematic”.
“Such a remedy is currently unknown to the law of torts and might not be legally available.”
Justice Lang dismissed Sweeney’s case.
Sweeney has previously testified that his downward spiral began as an 11-year-old when he was thrust into state care after his parents died three months apart.
That had devastating consequences - which saw him give evidence in last year’s Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care - and led him into gang life.
He was taken in by a family whose son he had befriended on the street and whose whanāu were Mongrel Mob members.
Sweeney eventually became one of the founding members of the Waikato Mongrel Mob.
Sweeney earlier told Justice Palmer that he had been addicted and had offended, but had later reformed, raising four children and speaking to prisoners at jails in Invercargill, Christchurch, Waikeria and Spring Hill.
Sweeney has two brothers and four nephews in the Mongrel Mob, but no personal relationship with the gang after leaving nearly 30 years ago.
He attended the tangi of Roy Dunn, with whom he had grown up in the welfare system and foster homes, “because I loved the brother Roy and it is just what we do as Māori”.
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.
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