By EUGENE BINGHAM
A man compensated for wrongful imprisonment on child abuse charges would have received $200,000 less under new Government guidelines.
The Minister of Justice, Phil Goff, confirmed yesterday that the cabinet had granted the Auckland man $570,000, as well as announcing that a new policy would limit future awards for non-pecuniary losses in similar cases.
Future payments to people wrongly convicted will now be set in three stages. As well as $100,000 for each year in jail, the person concerned will receive an average of $100,000 as recognition of suffering. Loss of income will be considered on top of that.
In the case of the Auckland man, he received $400,000 compensation and about $170,000 in costs.
Mr Goff said the assessment of non-pecuniary losses needed to be more consistent.
"Quantifying non-pecuniary losses such as pain and suffering is difficult in the absence of clear guidance as to an appropriate figure from which the calculation should commence," he said.
"Uncertainty in that calculation risks inconsistent results.
"While compensation needs to fairly reflect the losses and trauma of being wrongly imprisoned, it must also reflect the fact that many people receive no compensation for losses which are through no fault of their own.
"The new criteria if applied in the current case would have lowered the compensation payment by around $200,000."
The man's lawyer, Rob Harrison, said he could understand the Government's decision to impose stricter guidelines on compensation payouts.
"You are always going to be plucking a figure out of the air in terms of how much you decide someone's liberty is worth,"said Mr Harrison.
While $100,000 for non-pecuniary losses was an arbitrary figure, he could understand there had to be some starting point.
"It's always going to be an arbitrary figure - as long as there is some flexibility in there to take account of particular circumstances."
He said his client's case had involved unique circumstances.
The man, whose name was suppressed, was convicted in 1995 of sexually assaulting a son. He had served 14 months in prison before the Court of Appeal quashed the convictions when the son's allegations were retracted.
A Government-appointed independent examiner, David Williams, QC, found that the child's allegations had been retracted - and then reasserted - even before the trial, though this was never passed on to the man's defence lawyer.
Mr Williams concluded that the police officer in charge of the case had committed a serious error, but there was no suggestion of malice.
Assistant Commissioner Paul Fitzharris said the police had unreservedly apologised to the man, and recognised that an error of judgment was made.
Mr Harrison said the apology meant as much to his client as the money.
Meanwhile, the case of David Dougherty, who spent 3 1/2 years in jail for a rape charge he was later acquitted of, will be considered under the old guidelines because it was lodged before the changes were made.
His case is being assessed by Stuart Grieve, QC.
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