I should sue my student hostel

Bevan Hurley at HoS reports:

One of New Zealand’s most notorious sex offenders is suing the Corrections Department for $1 million over claims he was made to sleep on a thin mattress and use small towels.

Shit, I didn’t realise you could get $1 million for that. The beds and mattresses at Carrington Hall were pretty small and thin (we referred to the beds as contraceptives due to the practical challenge they posed to sharing them) so that must be worth a few hundred thousand.

In a long-running legal case, which is expected to cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars, Reekie said he was deprived of adequate light, didn’t have enough toilet paper, and was called “knob rot” by guards after developing a genital infection.

Heh, someone give that guard a Tui.

Reekie was sentenced to preventive detention in 2003 with a minimum non-parole period of 25 years after being convicted on 31 charges, including abduction and rape, for offences against four female victims, aged between 11 and 69.

It’s very easy to get outraged over this, but the reality is he has no real chance of winning any damages (and even if he did, will hopefully never be released to spend it). It is tempting to say he should not even be allowed to file a lawsuit, but the trouble with that approach is you may deny other prisoners their rights. And yes while prisoners lose some rights, access to the courts is not one of them.

The best thing to do is just ignore Reekie. He is probably doing this partly to outrage people. He can not be released from prison before 2028, and probably never will be.