Help end years of abuse through the courts for Rachel MacGregor #justiceforher

On Thursday 9 September 2021, the Supreme Court of New Zealand ruled that Colin Craig has no grounds to challenge the High Court ruling that he sexually harassed his press secretary, Rachel MacGregor from 2012-2014.

Although this ends ten years of legal challenges, the financial challenges for Rachel are just beginning. Rachel now has a legal bill of over $500,000 for a series of legal cases she never wanted to be part of but was forced to participate in. This is another form of harassment, seemingly never-ending for Rachel. The power imbalance in each case has been striking. The emotional, financial and physical impact on Rachel has been considerable.

The Supreme Court ruling confirmed the High Court decision from 2019 that Colin Craig’s actions were “highly inappropriate” and had “clear sexual content” and confirmed a May 2021 decision that Colin Craig “was aware that he acted inappropriately… and his statements in reply were false and misleading”.

Award winning journalist Kirsty Johnston says it like this: "Litigation abuse is real. It's a form of coercive control where the abuser continues to harm their victim in the court, usually until she (yes, she) runs out of resources and has to self-represent or give up."

But Rachel did not give up and in large part this was because of the support of so many ordinary New Zealanders who made donations and left messages of support for Rachel.

We are now asking kiwis to once again show that we do not agree with our courts being used by the rich and powerful to harass and abuse those without. Please donate to the Rachel McGregor Trust so we can help Rachel pay her legal fees

Further Background

Rachel was Press Secretary for Conservative Party founder Colin Craig in the lead up to the 2014 election. She filed a sexual harassment claim against Craig with the Human Rights Commission in 2014.

They reached a confidential settlement. To this day Rachel has stuck by the terms of that agreement and has not spoken about the case or the settlement. She expected to be able to move on and rebuild her life.

Craig went on to breach the settlement in a series of media conferences, interviews and in a self-produced pamphlet that went to 1.6 million Kiwi homes.

The Human Rights Tribunal found that Mr Craig had “at all times been in a more powerful position than Miss MacGregor. He has used his power and wealth to conduct a calculated campaign of breaches for the sole purpose of attempting to bolster his reputation.”

Since 2014 Craig has drawn Rachel into a series of very public court cases, which has impacted her health, and caused her major financial hardship.

Please find the previous Givealittle page here: https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/why-should-justice-be-available-only-to-the-rich