TOP STORY: Lawyer pays Ida's travel tab

KATHY WEBB
A Napier lawyer campaigning for MP Russell Fairbrother and the Labour Party says he will pay the Sensible Sentencing Trust $702, to cover the cost of travel to Parliament by a woman still emotionally devastated 18 years after the murder of her daughter.
Philip Jensen said yesterday that Wairoa woman Ida Hawkins was "hard done by" when the Government refused reimbursement for her trip to speak to a Parliamentary Select committee in Wellington in February.
Mrs Hawkins, who visited the site of her daughter's murder for the first time on Monday, said the man who helped beat her daughter to death was being paid compensation in jail, while she was denied the cost of going to Wellington to speak about the emotional devastation the man had wrought on her life. Some of her supporters at the riverbank gathering near Taradale, where several politicians spoke about law and order, called for the immediate resignation of Attorney General Margaret Wilson, who declined payment for Mrs Hawkins' travel.
After reading about Mrs Hawkins' experience on Tuesday, Mr Jensen made out a cheque to her and sent it to Hawke's Bay Today with a letter saying "I would have thought that (ACT MP) Steven Franks has the wherewithall (sic) to help Mrs Hawkins.
"I would have thought Garth McVicar has the wherewithall (sic) to help Mrs Hawkins.
"I would have thought HB Today has the wherewithall (sic) to help Mrs Hawkins.
"But no. All you have done is use her for a headline in the middle of an election campaign.
"Please forward this to Mrs Hawkins. I think she deserves it," he said.
When told that the Sensible Sentencing Trust had picked up the tab for Mrs Hawkins' travel, Mr Jensen said he would be happy to make out a cheque to the trust instead, "if the trust is concerned about the $702".
However, if the trust was "using that poor woman to make a political point", it should be upfront about it, he said. Spokesman Garth McVicar said a donation from Mr Jensen "would be very much appreciated", because the trust frequently paid expenses for victims of crime.
He had put $300,000 of his own money into the trust's work. Mr McVicar denied that the trust was using Mrs Hawkins to make a political point. If it were, it would be doing the same with all the other victims it helped, he said. Mr Jensen told Hawke's Bay Today he had not informed Mr Fairbrother about his cheque.
"It ain't nothing to do with him," he said.
"I'm doing this in my capacity as a private citizen and as an officer of the court."
Mr Fairbrother said on Tuesday the trust should have sent him its invoice for Mrs Hawkins' travel costs, because he was the local MP, and he would have handled it. But Mr McVicar said Mr Fairbrother was present when he openly asked the Select Committee for instruction on how to go about claiming reimbursement, and chairman Tim Barnett told Mr McVicar to send him the invoice. Mr Barnett then forwarded the invoice to Attorney General Margaret Wilson, who declined to pay it.
Mr McVicar re-sent the invoice to Ms Wilson's office on Monday, while supporters of Mrs Hawkins demanded that Ms Wilson resign immediately.
They said her decision was unfair, considering the Government had paid out $2.1m to anti-smoking groups to support its smokefree legislation.
The Select Committee Mrs Hawkins spoke to was considering a Bill to compensate a group of jail inmates who claimed their human rights had been breached by prison guards. One of them, Sam Te Hei, was among the Mongrel Mob members who beat Mrs Hawkins' daughter, 16-year-old Colleen Burrows, to death in June 1987. He is believed to be in line for $25,000 compensation from the Bill, having already been paid $90,000 for alleged mistreatment in jail.