15 Aug 2014

Woman gets cash for helping expose killer

11:46 am on 15 August 2014

The sister of the man killed by Christchurch woman Helen Milner has received a cash settlement from police as compensation for the work she did on the case.

Milner was jailed for life earlier this year and ordered to spend at least 17 years in prison for poisoning Philip Nisbet in 2009. Mr Nisbet's death was initially treated as a suicide but the case was reopened in 2011 after an investigation by his sister, Lee-Anne Cartier, and an inquest.

Ms Cartier told Radio New Zealand's Nine to Noon programme she spent up to $100,000 and many months helping prove Milner was the killer, work that the police should have done.

She was unhappy with the undisclosed amount of compensation she had been given.

"They've said that they can only offer so much, that it's the taxpayers' money and they can't just hand out willy nilly. But they can obviously use the taxpayers' money willy nilly to pay police officers that don't do their job."

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