Murderer gets compensation from paper over rape allegation

Apr 10, 2007, 0:51 GMT

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.