Lawyer rejects ‘poor’ advice call

Mariya Taylor’s lawyer has rejected suggestions that Taylor received ‘‘poor’’ legal advice that led to a rapist receiving thousands of dollars in costs.

Taylor, a former Air Force servicewoman, was on Monday ordered to pay nearly $28,000 in court costs to Robert Roper after she unsuccessfully sued him for mental harm.

Justice Minister Andrew Little yesterday said he would be studying whether Taylor had been a ‘‘victim of the court system or whether indeed it’s the poor advice of her lawyer’’.

High Court Justice Rebecca Edwards in 2018 found that Roper had groped Taylor and locked her in a cage when they worked together at Auckland’s Whenuapai air base in the 1980s.

However, Taylor lost her case after Justice Edwards found she left it too late to bring her claim under the timeframes imposed by the Limitations Act. Taylor’s lawyer, Geraldine Whiteford, said an important exclusion in the Limitations Act 1950 should have applied in Mariya’s case, and would form a major part of her appeal to the Court of Appeal.

‘‘If you have a mental disability, the time keeps running until you are able to overcome that disability,’’ Whiteford said. ‘‘She had strong grounds for suing, and the expert psychological evidence supported her. (But) the judge didn’t accept that she was under such a disability that she couldn’t have taken proceedings sooner.’’

Whiteford said Justice Edwards had ‘‘discretion to find that it wasn’t appropriate nor just to order costs against Mariya’’.

‘‘The way she exercised her discretion has led to a huge barrier to other survivors of sexual abuse who wish to use the civil system as opposed to the criminal system to seek justice.’’

In her decision, Justice Edwards said judges could exercise discretion in awarding costs, but that was not ‘‘unfettered’’ and had to be exercised in accordance with relevant legislation.

In particular, the legislation said the party that failed in a proceeding ‘‘should pay costs’’ to the party that succeeded.

‘‘The starting point is that Mr Roper successfully defended the claim against him, and is therefore entitled to an award of costs.’’

However, Justice Edwards awarded Roper only 50 per cent of the original $55,638.50 he sought as his denial of Taylor’s allegation ‘‘absorbed some time at trial’’, leading to higher legal fees.

Taylor laid a complaint with Queensland police against Roper in 2015 after hearing he had been convicted of raping other women, including his two daughters.

She ultimately brought a civil case as he was already serving a 13-year prison sentence for those crimes.

Whiteford said Taylor had lost her case because the timing of her complaint fell outside the statute of limitations, but that was because she was ‘‘disabled’’ by his actions and those of the Defence Force.