UPDATED 6.27pm: Colin Craig comprehensively breached his confidential settlement with Rachel MacGregor to attract maximum publicity, according to MacGregor’s lawyer’s summary of a decision by the Human Rights Review Tribunal.

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The breaches caused MacGregor significant humiliation, significant loss of dignity and significant injury to feelings, the tribunal found.

The finding was made in March was suppressed until the end of Craig’s defamation trial. That end on Friday when a jury found that Craig had defamed Taxpayers’ Union boss Jordan Williams in a booklet and at a press conference.

Craig was ordered to pay almost $1.3 million in damages.According to a summary by MacGregor’s lawyer Linda Clark, the tribunal ordered Craig to pay her $128,780 in damages plus costs.

The award includes $120,000 in damages for humiliation, loss of dignity and injury to feelings, the largest sum awarded by the tribunal for emotional harm.

MacGregor's lawyer, Linda Clark, said Ms MacGregor's pleased the decision can be published.

"She hopes this is the final chapter and that she can go on with the rest of her life and all the other parties involved in this will abide by the courts decision and the tribunals decision which is set, and this chapter can be closed."

Lawyer Hayden Wilson said the decision came out in March, but has only been released following the conclusion of a defamation trial against Mr Craig.

He said she's relieved, and hopeful that this is the end of this chapter.

• Conservatives still open to Craig returning

"She took this claim to the human rights commission because it is a confidential process. That hasn't been how it's turned out but she's hoping it can go back to that now."

The tribunal also granted MacGregor a restraining order against Mr Craig preventing him from making further comments.

MacGregor had made a complaint to the Human Rights Commission alleging Craig had sexually harrassed her.

According to Clark’s summary, her client made a claim to the tribunal after Craig breached the outcome of a mediation process.On May 4, 2015, MacGregor attended mediation with Craig seeking settlement of two issues; her pay dispute with Craig and her claim for sexual harassment.

Under section 85 of the Human Rights Act any information disclosed or outcome reached in a mediation is confidential.

Ms MacGregor attended the mediation believing it was a private and confidential meeting and that any agreement reached would remain private and confidential.

Settlement was reached at mediation. The Mutual Resolution, signed by MacGregor and Craig, included a clause that stated that neither party would comment to the media or third parties other than a statement that the parties had met and resolved their differences.

MacGregor agreed to settle her claim through the Human Rights Commission mediation process because she wanted to resolve the issues speedily and confidentially, Clark said. Having reached a settlement on 4 May 2015, she believed the matter was closed.

From June 8 2015, Mr Craig breached those confidentiality undertakings numerous times. MacGregor brought her claim to the tribunal seeking a declaration that Mr Craig had breached the terms of the settlement, an order restraining him from further breaches and damages for humiliation, loss of dignity and injury to feelings.

According to Clark, Craig breached the confidentiality of the settlement by confirming there had been a sexual harassment claim and that MacGregor was the complainant. He talked about the pay dispute, including disclosing how much money was paid to MacGregor.

He claimed a $20,000 loan had been forgiven compassionately. He talked about the nature of the relationship with MacGregor as being ‘mutual’. He claimed that both he and MacGregor had behaved inappropriately.

MacGregor claimed that the breaches were deliberate and designed to harm her reputation. She claimed he ought not to have breached confidentiality, but more than that he had done so in such a way as to mischaracterise the settlement. She claimed as a result her reputation had been damaged and she had been seriously affected by the stress and continuing media attention generated by Mr Craig. She claimed the combination of poor health and the stigma attached to being associated with such a high profile and unflattering scandal made it difficult for her to rebuild her professional future.

She also claimed that a process designed to protect claimants in sexual harassment cases had ended up causing her further emotional harm and victimisation.

Craig initially argued that MacGregor had been the first to breach the confidentiality undertakings. He argued she had not been truthful. He argued tMacGregor induced him to enter the settlement agreement with misrepresentations about who she had shared information about her relationship with Craig. He said that had he known Williams had been shown the letters he would not have signed the agreement.

Initially, he also argued that MacGregor worked with Williams to leak damaging information about him. He also argued that he had cancelled the settlement contract.

Craig argued he was the victim of the leak of confidential information and the leak put him under enormous pressure as his political career and many friendships unravelled.

The tribunal found Craig breached the confidentiality obligations “repeatedly and intentionally”. The breaches were “deliberate, systematic, egregious and repeated”.

MacGregor suffered significant humiliation, significant loss of dignity and significant injury to feelings. The causative link between Craig’s breaches and MacGregor’s humiliation, loss of dignity and injury to feelings was amply established, the finding said.

The tribunal said MacGregor was an honest witness. She had confided in Williams and showed him letters and cards written to her by Craig at a time when she was under no obligation of confidence to Mr Craig — the mediation had not been agreed to and had not taken place. She was entitled to speak to whoever she wished before the confidentiality agreement was signed.

According to Clark’s summary, the tribunal found MacGregor never provided assurances to Mr Craig that certain information had not been shared. In fact, she had never made any secret of the fact that a small group of confidantes had seen some of the correspondence from Craig before the filing of the sexual harassment claim.

MacGregor did not give Williams permission to leak information about Craig and she did not know he intended to leak information. She played no part in the leaking of the information to the Conservative Party or the media.

The tribunal said “Mr Craig’s entire counterclaim fails for the simple reason it has no factual foundation”.“It is difficult to see any basis for criticising Ms MacGregor’s conduct. With the exception of the single tweet of 22 June 2015 (of which Mr Craig made nothing) she has at all time adhered to the settlement and the confidentiality obligation.”She experienced, as a direct result of Mr Craig’s breaches, anxiety, anger, despair and alarm. She wasmarginalised and her right to the protection of the Human Rights Act was deliberately overridden by Craig.

The tribunal said of Craig’s breaches: “Mr Craig is wealthy, well-connected and well-advised. At all times he has been in the more powerful position than Ms MacGregor. He has used his power and wealth to conduct a calculated campaign of breaches for the sole purpose of bolstering, or attempting to bolster, his own reputation. He has disregarded his obligations under the Human Rights Act and the settlement agreement.”

The tribunal said Craig was “motivated by self-interest” and the “breaches occurred in the most public and damaging of circumstances”.“Mr Craig was controlling the narrative. He was exercising power and control over what was in the media by carefully releasing what he thought would save himself, what he thought would save his position and save his reputation.

“The released information was selected ... to paint himself as a person who had been falsely accused by a woman who was clearly incapable of managing her money and a fair inference was that what she was seeking through the sexual harassment complaint was money.”

The finding also said: “His actions were calculated and the likely impact on Ms MacGregor was obvious.”
“Mr Craig has had legal advice throughout. The most significant breaches were pre-scripted and, as submitted by Ms MacGregor, engineered to attract maximum publicity. He did not stumble into the breaches, He sought, fed and received media attention.“His brief of evidence, as filed and read into evidence, was correctly described by Ms MacGregor, as nothing short of a vilification of her.”

HOW IT UNFOLDED

MacGregor worked for Craig from August 2011 to September 18, 2014

She registered her claim of sexual harassment with the Human Rights Commission on September 18, 2014.

Before filing her claim in detail, she confided in Jordan Williams and showed him letters and cards Craig had written to her. She trusted Williams, executive director of the Taxpayers’ Union, to keep the information confidential.

MacGregor and Craig attended a confidential mediation, facilitated by the Human Rights Commission, on May 4, 2015.  A Mutual Resolution Agreement was signed that day.

Documents recording the financial settlement (part of the mediated settlement) were signed on May 7, 2015.

These two parts form the confidential settlement.

Craig participated in an interview in a sauna on TV3 on June 8, 2015.

He held a media conference with his wife, Helen, on June 22, 2015.

He released a booklet, distributed to households nationwide, on July 29, 2015.

MacGregor filed a claim with the Human Rights Tribunal seeking enforcement of the confidentiality undertakings agreed to under the May 4 agreement and seeking damages for the harm caused by Craig’s breaches of confidentiality.

The tribunal held a five-day hearing from December 7, 2015. All matters relating to the hearing, including the names of the parties and the fact of the hearing, were subject to interim non-publication orders

The tribunal issued its decision on March 2, 2016 and awarded MacGregor $128,780 in damages and compensation.

Craig sought to prevent publication of the decision.

A hearing was held on May 16, 2016 before the tribunal at which MacGregor sought to have the decision published before the events central to her sexual harassment claim were made public through evidence from Williams and Craig in the defamation hearing. She claimed continuing suppression of the decision would be unfair to her, given Mr Craig was planning on presenting extensive evidence about his relationship with her and her claim of sexual harassment.

The tribunal agreed and issued a decision on June 21 lifting all non-publication orders on the basis that the upcoming defamation trial would have at its centre the events which were private and confidential to MacGregor. The tribunal concluded that, as a non-party to the defamation proceedings, it would be unfair on MacGregor to not have the decision on record before Williams or Craig gave their version of events in court.Craig appealed against this decision in the High Court on July 21, claiming publication would prejudice his rights to a fair trial at the upcoming defamation trial.

At a hearing on July 27, Justice Cull sent the matter back to the Tribunal for further consideration.

The tribunal held a further hearing on August 30 to hear arguments from both sides about the effect of publication on Craig’s fair trial rights.

On September 7, the tribunal determined that the decision should continue to be suppressed until the second week of the Williams v Craig defamation hearing, at which time trial judge Justice Sarah Katz would be best-placed to determine the need for further suppression orders.

On September 12, Justice Katz ordered suppression to continue until the end of the defamation trial.

NZ Herald