Judge orders Corrections to pay serial offender $18k
Career criminal Arthur Taylor has scored a win for prisoner’s rights after being awarded damages of $18,000 for excessive strip searches and having a CCTV camera in his cell.
The 66-year-old had sought $1.45 million from the Department of Corrections relating to his treatment as an inmate and events stretching from June 2011 to March 2018.
Taylor, who spent about 38 years in prison for numerous offences before being paroled in February 2019, claimed his rights were breached under sections of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act that prevented torture or cruel treatment and the right of prisoners to be treated with dignity and respect.
His claims were wide-ranging and alleged serious mistreatment.
Taylor, who has more than 150 convictions, studied law and began representing himself in court in the early 1980s.
The allegations were heard before Justice Andru Isac in the High Court at Wellington in hearings between February 28 and April 14, 2022.
Justice Isac’s findings, first released on November 30 and rereleased on Monday, ruled a series of strip searches, in early 2018, had breached Taylor’s right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure.
Taylor was awarded a total of $12,000, calculated at $1000 for each of nine searches plus an uplift of $3000 for the cumulative impact.
Justice Isac also found Taylor’s placement in a cell at the High Care Unit of Auckland Prison for periods of 2011 and 2012, with an operating and monitored CCTV camera also breached his rights under the NZ Bill of Rights Act. He awarded Taylor $6000 for the breach.
Handcuffing Taylor for a threehour trip from Mt Eden Prison to Waikeria Prison in March 2018, based on an escape risk due to an attempt in 2005, was also ruled inappropriate.
Justice Isac was, however, satisfied it was not inhumane treatment and made no award for damages which mirrored his findings in many of the other alleged breaches.