Mother fights compensation for daughter's killer

Ida Hawkins put aside a little from her invalid's benefit every week for nearly 10 years to pay for her murdered daughter's headstone.

Her daughter Colleen Burrows, 15, was kicked and beaten to death in Napier in 1987 by gang members when she refused to have sex with them.

Mrs Hawkins now features in a campaign of television advertisements aiming to stop her daughter's killer getting compensation.

The Wairoa woman said it was fundamentally wrong that a killer should be compensated for how he was treated in jail, yet she had to struggle for years to pay for her daughter's headstone.

Sam Te Hei was convicted of murdering Colleen Burrows and has already received $90,000 in compensation for the way he was treated in Mangaroa Prison in Hawkes Bay. He is in line for a second payment of about $25,000 after he claimed mistreatment in Paremoremo Prison in Auckland.

Mrs Hawkins said she had been given no help since her daughter's murder 18 years ago.

She refused to face the pain of talking about her daughter's death for years until she became involved with the Sensible Sentencing Trust.

On top of her daughter's death, her son Joseph Burrows died in a car accident two years ago. She is now trying to pay for his headstone.

She said that even 18 years after Colleen's death she desperately needed counselling but the Government refused to help.

"I need it even after 18 years ... There are things I need to talk about to somebody."

She said some of the expenses of her daughter's funeral were met but she also paid a lot herself in small payments which took several years.

"Sam Te Hei has already received $90,000. There was nobody at the time he received it out there saying, 'What about the victims?' "

Mrs Hawkins struggled with her emotions when asked what she would say to Te Hei if she faced him. "A lot of things, heaps of things," she said after a long pause. He can't be given this compensation.

"When he talks about his rights, what about Colleen's rights?"

Te Hei's claim was lodged before the Prisoners and Victims Claims Act was passed in June but the compensation he was due to be paid for Paremoremo was being appealed against, said Garth McVicar from the Sensible Sentencing Trust.

- NZPA