No inflation payout for Teina Pora ‘irrational’

A Cabinet decision irrationally ignored the effect of inflation and time on the payout to Teina Pora for the more than 19 years in jail on a wrongful conviction for rape and murder, his lawyer says.

‘‘To ignore time and the effects of inflation is not just ironic, it is irrational, and that is exactly what happened,’’ Gerard McCoy, QC, said in the High Court at Wellington yesterday.

Pora’s lawyers say he should get $568,000 extra to take account of inflation, on top of the $2.5 million he has already received.

The decision of the Cabinet not to take account of inflation was ungenerous and niggardly, McCoy said.

But the Crown’s lawyer, Paul Rishworth, QC, defended the payout, saying guidelines for miscarriage-of-justice payments had been flawlessly applied in Pora’s case.

The guidelines were inconsistent with an adjustment for inflation. The Cabinet could have changed them at any time and had chosen not to, he said. The court had very limited scope to review that decision.

Justice Rebecca Ellis reserved her decision, saying Pora had waited ‘‘quite long enough’’ and she would issue the result as soon as she could.

She asked Rishworth repeatedly about the appearance of anomaly and injustice in the decision not to make an allowance for inflation.

Pora’s lawyers say it would take $152,000 to equal the real value of $100,000 in 1994, when Pora was first wrongly convicted.

Based on the time he spent in jail, it was the worst case of injustice in New Zealand but, as an annualised figure, he was the least compensated of all those who had received payouts under the same guidelines, McCoy said.

Pora spent 22 years and 11 months in custody, either awaiting trial or as a sentenced prisoner.

The Government decided against inflation-adjusting his compensation, despite a recommendation to do so from the retired High Court judge who assessed his claim.

The compensation was broken down into $1.96m for loss of liberty based on $100,000 a year, and $225,000 for factors such as loss of reputation, family and other relationships, as well as mental and emotional harm.

Inflation adjustment was sought on those sums.

A third component, $334,000, was for legal and other professional expenses, lost income and loss of earnings potential, for which no adjustment was sought.

Pora was convicted in May 1994 of the 1992 rape and murder of Susan Burdett, an accounts clerk who was bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat in her South Auckland home. A successful appeal and then a retrial in 2000 also resulted in a guilty verdict.

He was granted parole from prison in 2014 and in March 2015 the Privy Council quashed his conviction.

New evidence presented to the Privy Council showed Pora suffered from foetal alcohol syndrome. His often implausible and frequently contradictory confessions, made the convictions unsafe. No retrial was ordered. However, the solicitor-general has asked for the legal stop on the Burdett murder charge against serial rapist Malcolm Rewa to be lifted so that he could be tried again. Rewa has already been convicted of raping Burdett.

"To ignore time and the effects of inflation is not just ironic, it is irrational, and that is exactly what happened." Lawyer Gerard McCoy, QC, on behalf of Teina Pora, pictured left.