Media & Press Releases

The Rachel MacGregor Trust has welcomed today’s decision from High Court Judge, Hon. Justice Hinton, regarding the damages to be awarded to Rachel MacGregor as a result of the lengthy defamation proceedings initiated by her former boss, Colin Craig.

One-time politician Colin Craig has been ordered to pay $400,000 to his former press secretary for claiming he did not sexually harass her in the lead-up to the 2014 general election.

“This decision is the third to find that Mr Craig sexually harassed me. It’s a relief to have the courts confirm that when I filed my complaint I did so truthfully. It’s my strong wish that
Justice Hinton’s ruling is not appealed by Mr Craig and that he finally leaves me alone to get on with my life.


“After all this time, and all this litigation, I just want this awful ordeal to be finally over,” Ms MacGregor said today.


“I’ve found that filing a sexual harassment complaint is a very difficult thing to do. At the very least, I hope that NZ can eventually progress to being a place where any victim can know that if they do raise an alarm, good systems are in place so that they can be listened to in confidence, and they won’t be re-traumatised by the experience.


"What started as a traumatic experience in itself, with sexual harassment, has been very much magnified by the years of legal actions. It’s turned into a new form of harassment that has lasted longer and been more painful than I could have ever imagined.


"I feel so fortunate that after hearing Mr Craig had lodged a claim against me, a small group of incredible New Zealanders joined together to create a Trust to support the legal battle.


"I want to send a deep thank you to everyone who has made a contribution so far to the Givealittle page set up by the Trust to help pay the legal costs. Seeing how generous Kiwis decided to be is really humbling. It’s given me a great deal of strength knowing that there are some people out there who can really see the injustice of the situation and are willing to do something to try to stop it. I can only hope that this case prevents other cases like it in the future.


"I also want to thank my tireless legal team Hayden Wilson and Linda Clark from Kensington Swan. Linda saw what I was going through by reading about it in the paper and decided to reach out to offer to help. I’m so very grateful she did. I simply could not have done this on my own."