Crime victims 'should get compo from state'

Victims of violent crime should be getting cash compensation from the Government, Victim Support and the Human Rights Commission say.
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Parole Board chairman Judge David Carruthers has given tentative support to the proposal, saying New Zealand should study victim-compensation systems around the world and come up with something of its own.

Criminals owe about $50 million in unpaid reparation to their victims.

The call to the Government was made at the Advancing Victims Rights conference held by the Sensible Sentencing Trust in Napier at the weekend. It comes as a parliamentary select committee conducts an inquiry into victims' rights, aimed at changing the way crime victims are treated.

Victim Support deputy head Rob Tepett told families attending the conference that the Government should underwrite victim compensation.

"New Zealand has to fix this problem," he said.

Chief Human Rights Commissioner Rosslyn Noonan echoed Mr Tepett's calls for Government-backed restitution.

Judge Carruthers said recovering from serious crime could be "terribly sad, fractured, fragmented and complicated".

"Some countries look after victims' interests much better than we do in this country. The call for harsher sentences is a reflection that the interests of victims are being overlooked," he said.

Sensible Sentencing held the conference under the auspices of the Red Raincoat Trust, which helps victims of crime deal with government departments and other agencies.

Red Raincoat chief executive Wendy Pedler said families of murder victims in New South Wales were automatically awarded $50,000 to help them deal with the consequences of the crime.

"Here, they get nothing."

Among the 70 people who gathered to compare notes and pose questions to government department representatives were survivors of some of New Zealand's highest-profile violent crimes.

They included Kelly Pigott, whose six-year-old daughter Teresa Cormack was killed 20 years ago; Peter-John Alkema, whose wife Kate was strangled by Nika Abraham alongside the Hutt River in 2002; Susan Couch, who survived a savage beating by Panmure RSA triple murderer William Bell; and Tai Hobson, whose wife, Mary, was one of the three killed by Bell. Mr Hobson wrote and sang a song at the conference called Just Being Me, about the loneliness and heartache of losing a loved one.

Sensible Sentencing spokesman Garth McVicar said any system of compensation for victims should not be directly funded by taxpayers, but by a 10 per cent levy on fines imposed by courts and paid into a victim compensation fund.

Justice Minister Mark Burton said through a spokeswoman that he expected the question of compensation and reparation to be included in the report of the law and order select committee inquiring into victims' rights. "The Government will be giving careful and thoughtful consideration to the committee's report and what we expect to be comprehensive recommendations when its work is complete."

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