Notorious rapist Nicholas Reekie has had an appeal shut down by the Supreme Court.
In 2012, Reekie was awarded $1000 in costs by Justice Edwin Wylie after he attempted to sue the Corrections Department, the Attorney-General and Waitakere District Court for humiliation and unlawful detention while in Auckland's Paremoremo Prison in 2001 and 2002, to the sum of $1 million.
He later won the right to appeal the court's decision not to grant him full costs of $5762.
But in a recently released judgement, the Supreme Court closed the avenue of appeal.
It accepted the interpretation of the Prisoners' and Victims' Claims Act could give rise to a "point of public importance" but ruled that Reekie's case was not appropriate to test it.
"Nor do we see any real prospect of a miscarriage of justice arising if leave to appeal to this court is not granted. In those circumstances, we decline leave to appeal," the judges said.
Reekie was sentenced to preventive detention in 2003 with a minimum non-parole period of 25 years -- later reduced to 20 years -- after being convicted on 31 charges, including abduction and rape, for offences against four female victims, aged between 11 and 69.
David Dougherty was earlier wrongly jailed for the 1992 abduction and rape of the 11-year-old girl.
He was cleared by DNA evidence.