Rachel MacGregor has been awarded $400,000 in damages after she was defamed by her former employer, one-time Conservative Party leader Colin Craig.
The judgement comes after protracted legal challenges over the fallout from the 2014 election campaign, when MacGregor suddenly resigned just days before voters went to the polls.
Rachel talked to Lately about the toll it has taken on her mental and physical health, family and work, and how she feels after today's announcement.
Photo: RNZ / Cole Eastham-Farrelly
She tells Karyn Hay that it’s too soon to say if the protracted battle has come to an end as Craig still has the option to appeal.
“It doesn’t actually feel like a win to be frank because my legal fees are a lot more than that and it doesn’t come close to compensating the real damage it has done to my life. I do hope that it will send a signal that, eventually, the legal system doesn’t allow this sort of thing.”
MacGregor says that, while she’s been through the wringer, she hasn’t had a choice but to carry on and she’s been helped by messages of support from people.
“Not just people from New Zealand, but people around the world have somehow heard about it and have been so encouraging. It’s everyone’s strength that’s been given to me and I’ve been riding that wave.
But there have been a number of low points.
“It’s been really hard on family especially, I don’t know how I’ve done it. It’s a really crappy time but you just have to right? You just do it.”
She says that if she knew what she knew now, she wouldn’t have gone through with it.
“It’s just way too much stress, it’s completely changed my life. I’m such a different person now. I don’t like to use the word trauma because I know there are people who’ve gone through worse things than me, but I think it has really traumatised me in a lot of respects. I do feel damaged by it. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone else.”
MacGregor says she’s lucky to be able to work fulltime now but, in previous years, there were so many legal letters from top lawyers arriving on her desk she couldn’t cope.
“It’s bad then it’s OK for a moment, then it’s bad again, then it’s OK for a moment, then it’s bad again, it just goes on and on for years and years. It doesn’t end, there’s no point where you can start healing again.”
The legal system, she says, it’s too easily used as a weapon against people like her.
“The system is the tortuous thing, it really is. It takes such a long time, everything is really slow and everything is ridiculously expensive. I don’t see how arming people up with expensive lawyers and going through a big process like that helps anyone. Neither party is happy at the end of it. No one wins.
“Really we’ve got to be tapping into what are the human needs we’re trying to meet through this and trying to get those met as opposed to arguing about who’s right. In this case, the judge has awarded damages and said I’m right, but is that helpful to anyone?”
For now, she wants to be free from the legal proceedings that have taken over her life.
“I don’t want this to define my life. It’s embarrassing that I even worked for [Craig] when I was trying to start a business all those years ago. I should never have taken on a client like that. It’s embarrassing let alone it going over and over again and having it drag on this long.”
