Court throws out convicted rapist's case

A serial rapist has lost a bid for an extension of time for his latest appeal. File photo / NZ Herald

A serial rapist serving a minimum 25-year jail term has lost a bid for an extension of time for his latest appeal.

Nicholas Reekie was sentenced to preventive detention after being found guilty in 2003 on 30 charges including the 1992 rape of an 11-year-old girl for which David Dougherty was wrongly jailed and sexual attacks on three other women.

The evidence against Reekie for the rape of the girl included a court-ordered DNA sample which he argued was wrongfully taken from him while he was in prison in 2001 on an aggravated burglary charge.

Reekie was seeking an extension to the time allowed to lodge an appeal against a decision in August last year to deny him a review of various decisions by the Legal Aid Board and the Legal Aid Review Panel to not give him legal aid to contest a civil action over the blood sample.

He claimed at the time withdrawing legal aid was a breach of his various rights under the Bill of Rights Act and sought up to $200,000 for damages and compensation.

Justice Patrick Keane dismissed Reekie's legal arguments as not merely untenable but "vexatious and an abuse of process".

In a decision released today the Court of Appeal declined an application to extend the time allowed for Reekie's appeal against Justice Keane's decision.

"Having considered the judgment of Keane J and the submissions made to us, both by Mr Reekie and by counsel for the first and third respondents, we are satisfied that the appeal has no prospect of succeeding," the decision said.

- NZPA