Legal aid expenses in Lundy case top $2m

Mark Lundy in the dock for day 12 of his retrial for the murder of his wife Christine and daughter Amber. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Legal expenses at the Mark Lundy retrial have topped $2 million and the bill for the entire case is three times that amount.

The Ministry of Justice has confirmed legal aid for Lundy's defence cost more than $1.77 million.

Lundy was found guilty at a retrial this year of murdering his wife Christine and daughter Amber, 7, in a frenzied axe attack in their Palmerston North home in 2000.

Under legal aid rates, the defence team of London's David Hislop, QC, Ross Burns and Julie-Anne Kincade can each charge $159 an hour.

The defence bill includes expert witness expenses and other costs.

The legal-aid bill for the David Bain retrial was $3.3 million. Clayton Weatherston's trial cost $400,000 in legal aid, and Ewen Macdonald's $271,000.

On the other side of the benches, Crown Law paid lead prosecutor Philip Morgan, QC, about $210,000 for his role in the case from October 2013, when the retrial was ordered by the Privy Council, to April this year.

He was paid at the Crown rate of $198 an hour.

Fellow prosecutor Ben Vanderkolk was paid from the Palmerston North Crown solicitor's annual funding.

Lundy was jailed in 2002 and spent 13 years behind bars after being found guilty. He was released after the Privy Council ruled a miscarriage of justice.

After the second guilty verdict Lundy was immediately ordered to resume his life sentence, with a 20-year minimum period.

It had previously been reported that the initial police investigation cost about $1.3 million. The cost of the second investigation had reached $1.7 million earlier this year.

Lundy is appealing the retrial verdict. No date has yet been set.

The Crown's original case was that Lundy, who was in Wellington on business on August 29, 2000, dashed home and killed the pair about 7pm, cleaned up and went back to Wellington, where cellphone records placed him just before 8.30pm.

At the retrial, the Crown argued the deaths happened about 3am on August 30, 2000.

Lundy is eligible for parole in 2022.

Trial costs

2015 retrial:

• Legal aid $1,775,850

• Crown witness fees and travel costs $139,322

• Lead prosecutor was paid $209,637

• He also received costs of $1388

• And for pre-trial appeal appearances and costs $10,243

• Crown prosecutors' accommodation and travel $47,904

• Crown Law costs $10,115

• Police investigation $1,703,844

2013 Privy Council hearing

• Crown travel and accommodation costs $41,950

• Crown fees to London solicitors $24,325

• The Crown also had to pay Lundy's team $720,551 costs

First trial

• Legal aid for the trial and appeals was $163,359

• First police investigation $1,340,665

• Prosecution costs were not immediately available

Total: $6,189,153.