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On Saturday, the front cover of the New Zealand Herald led with understandable outrage at the amount of money convicted sex offender Luca Fairgray spent trying to keep his name suppressed.

That sum? $120,000.

And it’s not hard to see why people are furious — watching someone pour that kind of taxpayer money into preserving their anonymity, only to be convicted anyway.

And now we all know his name: Luca Fairgray — a man convicted of multiple serious sexual offences, including against a 13-year-old girl, all while he was still under interim name suppression for earlier crimes.

There were also understandable arguments about the lack of funding for victims — and fair enough. But with the greatest respect, that’s a separate issue for a separate discussion.

Now that we know the verdict, and we know the culprit’s name, it’s easy to look back and be appalled at how much money was spent — not just on his defence, but on his repeated attempts to remain anonymous.

But here’s the thing: like it or not, I can’t imagine a fair justice system operating any other way.

Because the most important thing is that we have a system we can have faith in. And faith in that system relies on knowing that people can defend themselves — whether or not they have the resources to do it.

Otherwise, what are we looking at? A system where justice depends on your bank balance. Where your defence is only as strong as the cash you can throw at it.

And for my part, I just don’t think we want to start deciding who gets access to justice based on an accused’s resources — or how much we loathe what they’ve been accused of.

Because the alternative? Only the wealthy get to fight for their rights. Everyone else? Too bad. Guilty or not — you’re on your own.

And look, in other aspects of life, sure — some people will always be able to afford to fly first class. But when it comes to justice, we’re not talking about airline tickets. We’re talking about outcomes that can redeem or destroy lives.

There’s another aspect to this — and maybe it’s a bit churlish of me — but honestly, how on earth do you rack up $120,000 in legal fees just fighting for name suppression?

I can’t help but wonder whether, in terms of the sheer quantum of money being spent here, we — or at least the system — is just taking the Mickey.

Because $120,000? Just to argue about name suppression? That feels like the real scandal.

But the rest of it? Luca Fairgray was convicted. Sentenced. And now, everyone knows who he is.

We paid a price for it. But like it or not, it looks like that’s the price of a justice system we can believe in.