Killer not celebrating windfall, says lawyer

Press, 31 May 1986, Page 8

Killer not celebrating windfall, says lawyer

PA Wellington The convicted murderer, Robert Conchie Harris, is not sitting back in Pareremoremo Maximum Security Jail laughing with his mates about his $18,330 compensation, says his lawyer. Mrs Lorraine Smith, of Auckland, said Harris was pleased when he first heard of the award, but after the publicity “he was concerned that memories would be evoked for children of one of the murder victims.” “The double murders happened three years ago and now it has been aired again to the public and old wounds have been reopened,” she said.

“All the details of the murders have suddenly exploded again.”

Harris had a child himself, was “a very sensitive sort of person” and was worried about the effects publicity was having on

the victim’s children, Mrs Smith said.

The money was bringing him “no pleasure.”

Harris said he would, through Mrs Smith, put a four-figure amount into an interest-bearing account which would mature when the youngest of the victim’s three children was 21.

Harris calculated that the investment would bear $30,000 and would be divided between the three.

But the children’s father, Mr John Pye, who lives with them in Te Awamutu, said on television the children would under no circumstances accept the money.

Mrs Smith said she would ask Harris next week if he still wanted to go ahead, in spite of what Mr Pye had said. “He knows there is public reaction to getting the money. He is terribly upset about it,” she said.

She would also discuss with him the possibility of applying to the Court of Appeal for leave to appeal against his conviction for the murders at Titoki in Northland in February, 1983, of his cousin, Trevor Crossley, and his de facto wife, Carol Anne Pye, mother of the three children.

Application for leave would have to be made because appeals were supposed to be lodged within 21 days of sentence being passed — it was now more than two years since Harris was sentenced. Harris did not wait for the money before deciding whether to go ahead with an appeal. He decided about a month before the news came through from the Accident Compensation Corporation.

Mrs Smith said she did not receive any money from the compensation payout. Her fees for mak-

ing his case to A.C.C. were paid by legal aid. Harris’s payment was in two parts, said the A.C.C. general manager, service delivery, Mr Don Currie, of Wellington. One part was the maximum of $lO,OOO for loss of enjoyment of life, pain and suffering and disfigurement.

The second part was $8330 because orthopaedic assessment showed Harris was now 49 per cent permanently disabled and that amount was 49 per cent of the maximum $17,000 allowed under the Accident Compensation Act to be paid for physical impairment. Mr Currie said the $lO,OOO was usually paid to claimants with close to 50 per cent permanent disability caused by an accident.

Mrs Smith said Harris limped “vety badly,” was in constant pain, and was still receiving treatment for his injuries suffered when he fell from the wall of Mount Eden Prison late in 1983 while he was on remand awaiting trial for the Titoki murders.

It was said he was trying to escape with three others, and that police at the time claimed one of them was thought to have pushed Harris off the wall because he did not want Harris to accompany the group.

She said Harris broke both legs, one of which was “smashed,” and also broke an arm.