Tracey says that if the claim was successful – it was initially upheld by the Victims’ Special Claims Tribunal but then turned down by the courts on appeal – the proceeds would have gone to the victims’ rights movement that supported them.
“It never was about the money,” Tracey says. “It was to set a precedent for victims facing loss and grievance, and the issues are about what support there is for victims.”
“We definitely feel that justice hasn’t been served, and it’s a very disappointing decision,” she says. “The New Zealand justice system needs a big makeover.”
“It took a huge toll on my mother, on her health, mentally and physically. Our mother was broken-hearted, yet she stayed strong and courageous.”
“It had a huge impact on our whānau, and it still does to this day,” says Tracey, who left Hawke’s Bay 23 years ago, struggling amid the daily reminders, and the anxiety attacks she suffers as a result.
Aged 13 at the time of the killing, she shared the “special bond” of a young teenager growing up with an older teenaged sister.
She could talk with Colleen about things she couldn’t with anyone else.
“I hardly go back to Hawke’s Bay any more, and I stay no more than three or four days,” she says.
“Even 39 years later I have days where I sit and wonder what it would be like, I still find myself grieving, and I break down and cry and wish that she was still here.”
She thinks of her own children and grandchildren, and how her sister never got to enjoy those experiences, because it was “taken away” by the killers.
Her brother Christopher, who also no longer lives in Hawke’s Bay, wasn’t born when Colleen’s life was taken, but came to know the recurring nightmare his mum and the family went through whenever the subject came up.
They had a brother, Joseph, who died in a car crash in 2003, and their mother helped raise numerous other children.
He says he never saw his mother heal or have closure.
“It was a case of trying to find a sense of closure,” he says.
“It was pretty disappointing to see the court take the side of the prisoner again.”
They believe it’s been beaten on a point of law, and legal experts have suggested to Hawke’s Bay Today it will now take changes in the law to enable victims in the situation their mother was in to be able to sue.
Ida Hawkins, who passed away in 2024 without seeing the outcome she wanted for victims, pictured with husband Pārau in 2005.
In a decision based on a hearing in March and released on September 4, the Supreme Court bench of five of New Zealand’s most senior judges determined on legal grounds it could not award compensation or damages to a person who was not a direct witness to the killing.
How things got to this point: The murder of Colleen Burrows and the complex fight for justice
It happened on the night of June 17-18, 1987.
Sixteen-year-old Colleen Burrows was raped, beaten, and run over by a vehicle and left for dead beside a track on the banks of the Tūtaekurī River, near Brookfields Bridge.
She was found in the morning, about the time six-year-old Teresa Cormack was being abducted in an unrelated event in the streets of Maraenui, which led to Napier having two major homicide inquiries running simultaneously.
Te Hei and another man were convicted of her murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, Te Hei eventually serving 30 years in jail.
He was released on parole in 2018, and in 2020 the Crown agreed to pay him $17,644 as compensation for breaches under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, arising from mistreatment while incarcerated.
Ida Hawkins, who Tracey says never recovered from the trauma and stress arising from the killing of her daughter, then lodged a claim under the Prisoners’ and Victims Claims Act for emotional harm and exemplary damages compensation from Te Hei.
The Victims’ Special Claims Tribunal upheld the claim of emotional harm and awarded her $15,000, although because of the complicated legal argument that followed, it would never be paid.
It also turned down the claim for exemplary damages.
In 2022, the High Court allowed Te Hei’s appeal against the decision and quashed the Tribunal award and also dismissed a cross-appeal by Ida Hawkins in relation to the exemplary damages claim.
The court held that the Tribunal had “failed to identify a cause of action” on which Ida Hawkins could sue under the general law.
In February last year, by which time Ida Hawkins had died, the Court of Appeal allowed an appeal on behalf of Ida Hawkins’ estate.
Ida Hawkins, who passed away in 2024, pictured in 2004 with a picture of daughter Colleen Burrows, who was murdered in 1987.
It referred it back to the Tribunal on the basis that she may have had a claim against Te Hei on grounds not previously considered by the High Court or the Tribunal, “namely, a common law claim for psychiatric harm”.
The estate, represented by Tracey Peka, pursued the matter, and the Supreme Court’s latest decision dismissed a further appeal and allowed a cross-appeal, setting aside the direction to return the matter to the Tribunal.
Citing precedent, it said a previous Court of Appeal left open the question of whether a secondary victim had to be a direct witness to the event.
It declined to overrule a precedent decision, saying a claim for mental injury was not necessarily excluded, but if there was to be change it needed to be by legislation.
Doug Laing is a Hawke’s Bay Today reporter with 39 consecutive years in Napier, covering news events and issues throughout Hawke’s Bay.