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The mother of brutally murdered Dunedin teenager Jayne McLellan says a justice system that allows her daughter's convicted murderer to be paid compensation while in jail has failed her and failed her dead daughter.
Pam Wadsworth, of Palmerston, was yesterday outraged her daughter's killer, Andrew MacMillan, had again received a payment while in prison, this time for an out-of-court defamation settlement with Fairfax newspapers. "The whole thing stinks and I think the whole of New Zealand would agree with me," she said.
In 1988, 17-year-old Jayne's half-naked, bloody and broken body was found lying in the Kaikorai Stream. She had multiple stab wounds, fractures to her face, a stone in her windpipe to stop her screaming, one nipple nearly bitten off and a chunk missing from her arm.
Her jaw was shattered and numerous blows to the left side of her face with a concrete pole led her brother, who identified the body, to describe her to her mother as a looking like a "lump of meat". Convicted of her murder in the Dunedin District Court in 1989, MacMillan, a friend of Jayne's older brother, was given a 14-year jail sentence, with eligibility for parole after 10 years.
He was freed from prison in 2000 to attend a rehabilitation programme in Christchurch but was recalled to prison that year for breaching his parole conditions. He is in prison in Auckland and is due for his eighth parole hearing in June.
Fairfax newspapers published stories wrongly describing MacMillan, who was never charged with rape, as a convicted rapist in 2004 when news broke he was awarded $1200 from the Human Rights Review Tribunal. He was awarded the money after successfully arguing he had his "feelings hurt" when he was not allowed to see a letter accusing him of introducing a teenage girl to perverted sex while on temporary release in Christchurch in 2000.
The two compensation payouts came on top of at least 10 "partially supervised" visits to his sick mother in Dunedin in 2003 and 18 years of "free education, free food and free healthcare", Mrs Wadsworth, 66, said. The situation had made her despair of the justice system for several reasons.
First, she believed the police had not handled the case thoroughly enough at the time. "I said to the policeman [at the time], 'Is he [MacMillan] going for rape?' and he said, 'No, we've got him for murder', and that seemed like it was enough for him."
Second, she was devastated MacMillan had been given legal aid and was allowed to receive compensation while in prison. Mrs Wadsworth said her heart was still pounding last night after hearing the news about the defamation settlement from a reporter about 5pm on Monday.
"It was a hell of a shock. This has brought back feelings I had forgotten I had, the memories, the pain, the misery, you just don't think it will come up again and again like this. It's like a nightmare, it just won't go away."
Fairfax has not revealed how much money it paid MacMillan in its settlement. At least $9225 in legal aid for his claim was fully repaid. Fairfax editor-in-chief Peter O'Hara said that even if the company had won the case, it still would have faced a six-figure bill for legal costs.
He said regardless of whether MacMillan had any reputation to lose, the publisher had made a mistake in saying he had done something he was not charged with.
- OTAGO DAILY TIMES
