Wellington - A man jailed for life for murdering a teenage
girl has won compensation from a newspaper group which wrongly
described him as a rapist, it was reported on Tuesday.
Andrew Ronald MacMillan was granted legal aid - a government-
funded scheme which allows people who cannot afford legal
representation to get a lawyer - to sue Fairfax Media, publishers of
New Zealand newspapers The Press and Dominion Post, for defamation
and punitive damages.
Fairfax Media settled the case out of court, agreeing to publish a
correction, payment of MacMillan's legal costs and a small,
undisclosed, sum in compensation.
MacMillan pleaded guilty to the murder of Jayne Maree McLellan,
17, in Dunedin, in 1988, who was left nearly naked, with extensive
stab wounds, fractures to her face, stones in her windpipe to stop
her screaming, and with one nipple nearly bitten off, but was not
charged with rape, The Press reported.
The victim's mother, Pamela Wadsworth, told the paper, 'Her
clothing was scattered everywhere. She was naked apart from a
camisole pulled over her head and she had slashes on her inner
thighs.'
She dubbed the award of compensation 'downright disgusting' and
added, 'I think it stinks for the taxpayer to fund him to do this.'
A spokesman for Fairfax Media said the company chose to settle the
case rather than go to trial because laws put a legally-aided
plaintiff at a significant advantage, irrespective of the merits of
the case.
The Legal Services Agency's grants manager Robyn Nicholas defended
the decision to grant legal aid, saying it had been assessed by an
independent lawyer and was vindicated by Fairfax's decision to
settle.
Nicholas confirmed that the 9,225 New Zealand dollars (about 6,457
US dollars) it advanced for legal aid for MacMillan had been fully
repaid in the settlement.
The Fairfax spokesman said that fighting the case would have cost
easily a six-figure sum and even if it won, it was extremely unlikely
to get that back from MacMillan or the agency.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
USA
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