How one woman's eight-year fight raises questions about ACC's 'abhorrent' new approach to weekly compensation
Monday, 6 July 2026
After eight years, Waikato woman Kristy Wilson has won weekly compensation for childhood sexual abuse.
ACC argued she was not entitled to the payment because she suffered the mental injury as a child, when she was not earning an income.
Her case has highlighted a disputed ACC approach to applying a landmark Court of Appeal decision.
ACC says its approach reflects its interpretation of the Court of Appeal ruling, and that the law remains an “evolving and complex area”.
Eight years after she first sought help, Kristy Wilson has finally won weekly compensation for the childhood sexual abuse she suffered. But her case has highlighted a disputed new ACC approach that denies some survivors the payment – because ACC says they suffered their mental injury before they were earning an income. Paula Penfold investigates.
Warning: This story discusses sexual abuse.
On a Monday in late March 2018, 36-year-old Kristy Wilson finally broke.
She’d been stressed and anxious for months, under pressure supporting her husband’s new business while also working fulltime.
“This big giant bomb exploded,” Wilson says. “And it was me.”
She saw her GP who wrote in his notes that she was in a hole she felt she couldn’t escape, to the point where she had a “passive death wish”. She said she would not follow through with it because of her children.
The doctor prescribed medication to help her sleep, and Wilson went to counselling. At her third session, she disclosed significant childhood sexual abuse. For more than 30 years, she had told no one.
Wilson was referred to a psychologist under ACC’s sensitive claims process for funded counselling, a “daunting” process which opened the Pandora’s box she’d kept locked for so long.
Thirty years of silence
Wilson was born in New Zealand and moved with her grandmother to the Australian outback when she was 2 years old.
From the age of 8, she says she was sexually abused by a family member.
She returned to New Zealand just before she turned 15 and the abuse continued for another two years. There were also separate incidents of sexual abuse when she was 15 and 16, recorded in psychiatric and psychological reports.
Three weeks after that first appointment with her doctor, stressed and overwhelmed, Wilson resigned from her job. It was the 17th of April – a date that would turn out to be significant.
In October that year, experiencing suicidal thoughts, Wilson went to the hospital emergency department and was referred to Mental Health Services. She was diagnosed with depression and PTSD.
But in the first setback of what would turn out to be an eight year battle with ACC, she was told that because the abuse did not happen in New Zealand, ACC could not grant cover for mental injury.
Wilson says she was left far worse off than before she had sought help.
“I don’t even know how to explain that moment,” she told Stuff at her home in the Waikato town of Huntly. “I went into a very deep depression. Life just went spiraling.”
She began “self-sabotaging,” abusing substances and alcohol. She wondered how she would pay for the treatment she felt she desperately needed. Her suicidal thoughts became suicide attempts.
But with a daughter and two stepdaughters – “so much to live for” – in 2023, Wilson found an organisation that advocates for ACC claimants, which connected her with specialist ACC firm John Miller Law.
ACC agreed to a new psychiatric assessment, which confirmed PTSD and a major depressive disorder.
The psychiatrist also concluded the abuse that had occurred in New Zealand had contributed to Wilson’s PTSD and depressive disorder, so for the first time, there was good news, it seemed – at least at first.
ACC accepted cover. But that did not automatically entitle Wilson to weekly compensation, calculated at 80 percent of her income.
ACC determined her date of injury as May 8, 2018, which was when her GP noted her sensitive claim.
She had resigned three weeks earlier. Therefore, ACC said, she was not eligible for weekly compensation because she was not employed at the date of injury.
Her lawyers successfully challenged that date. ACC still said no to weekly compensation.
This time, it had a new reason.
A landmark court ruling – and how ACC has applied it
In December 2023, the Court of Appeal delivered a landmark decision known as ACC v TN.
The case concerned a different ACC compensation known as LOPE – loss of potential earnings – paid to people who can’t work because of injury.
“TN” was a survivor of childhood sexual abuse.
The court ruled that, for LOPE claims, the relevant date was when the mental injury was suffered rather than when treatment was first sought by the claimant. The ruling opened up the possibility of compensation for people who had previously been ineligible.
Internal ACC documents, together with advice and papers from other government agencies obtained by Stuff, set out how ACC reacted.
In January 2024, ACC issued interim guidance stating the Court of Appeal decision applied only to LOPE payments, not to other entitlements such as weekly compensation. The documents show that position later changed.
By June 2024, Treasury had estimated ACC’s claims liability to have increased by $3.6 billion, the bulk of which was as a consequence of the ACC v TN ruling.
During 2025 ACC sought advice from a King’s Counsel as it developed new operational policies for implementing the ruling.
Then, the documents show, in September 2025, ACC began to implement those updated policies, using the date the mental injury was suffered rather than when treatment was sought. It applied the approach not just to LOPE payments, but across financial entitlements, including weekly compensation.
And in December 2025 ACC again declined Wilson’s claim, arguing the new relevant date was when her mental injury was suffered.
It deemed that date May 1995, “around the time that the event first occurred in New Zealand”.
(Wilson found that upsetting: “They used my 14th birthday.” And wrong. She hadn’t in fact arrived back in New Zealand until the following year. ACC subsequently amended the date.)
This time, in denying the claim, ACC cited its “operationalisation of the Court of Appeal decision,” and wrote that as she was not earning an income at the age of 14, “this means that unfortunately you are not eligible for weekly compensation”.
In a statement to Stuff, ACC clarified that as Wilson’s mental injury was identified to have been suffered in childhood, she was considered to be eligible for LOPE payments instead. LOPE is calculated at 80% of the minimum wage, whereas weekly compensation is 80% of the claimant’s wages.
To Wilson, the reasoning was absurd, given most survivors of childhood sexual abuse would not have been earning an income at the time.
It also seemed to her that the goalposts kept moving.
“It felt like ACC had pulled out the TN ruling after the fact. It was just like, ‘oh my gosh, this is an endless battle’.”
In April this year, the battle continued: Wilson’s case went to review again.
The arguments
Wilson’s lawyers argued ACC was wrong in how it had applied the Court of Appeal ruling, arguing that it resulted in a “blanket disentitlement” to weekly compensation for claimants who suffered childhood sexual abuse.
They argued that interpretation was “both abhorrent and wholly inconsistent with the Court of Appeal’s judgment” which they said made clear that it applied only to LOPE claims.
ACC defended its interpretation of the Court of Appeal ruling, saying Wilson’s mental injury was caused when she was a child, later resulting in incapacity to work, and she was not entitled to weekly compensation.
The outcome
The reviewer disagreed.
In her decision released early last month, reviewer Moka Ritchie found in Wilson’s favour.
She quashed ACC’s decision and ordered it to issue a new decision that Wilson is eligible for weekly compensation.
Ritchie wrote that ACC’s interpretation of the Court of Appeal ruling would lead to clients who’d suffered childhood sexual abuse only ever being eligible for LOPE and not weekly compensation “regardless of whether they had worked for years or decades”.
She said the ACC v TN case did not apply to Wilson’s circumstances; that the date of injury was when Wilson first saw her GP; that she was employed at that date, and was therefore entitled to weekly compensation.
Wilson had won.
But a much bigger question remained.
How many others?
Wilson’s case is not an isolated dispute.
One firm alone, John Miller Law, which represented Wilson, is currently acting for 16 weekly compensation claimants where ACC has applied a similar interpretation of the TN case.
Angela Brown from John Miller Law says that number is set to increase: other clients receiving weekly compensation have been advised by ACC that they will be changed to the lower-rate LOPE payments instead.
“A cynic would say it’s in order to save the money that they anticipated they would lose as a result of the TN ruling,” Brown believes.
Stuff asked ACC whether the financial implications of ACC v TN were taken into account in developing policy for how to implement the ruling.
We also asked how many claims have been assessed under its interpretation of ACC v TN, how many have been declined, reviewed or overturned, and whether other claimants receiving weekly compensation are being reassessed.
ACC said those questions would be dealt with under the Official Information Act, but did say there had been “several” review decisions considering ACC’s interpretation of the TN ruling.
Deputy chief executive service delivery, Michael Frampton, said the Court of Appeal decision was “highly complex and represents a significant change to how sensitive claims clients access financial support within the ACC scheme”.
“We have considered how the decision can be implemented fairly and consistently. Our approach reflects our interpretation of the Court of Appeal’s decision.”
He said of the claims that had gone to review, “while some reviewers have agreed with ACC’s interpretation, others have reached a different conclusion”.
“In Kristy’s case, the review reached a different conclusion to ACC. We have accepted their decision. Application of the TN ruling is an evolving and complex area of law. We welcome further clarification through review and Court decisions and will adapt our approach where required.”
Frampton said he was sorry to hear how difficult Kristy Wilson had found her claims experience. “I recognise the courage it’s taken for her to seek support.”
The victory that doesn’t feel like one
Weeks after the review decision, and on the same day Stuff sent questions to ACC about her case, Wilson received confirmation from ACC that it would pay her weekly compensation.
Eight years after she first sought help, it doesn’t feel like victory.
“Nobody wins here,” she says. 'I should feel triumphant, but I don’t.”
She believes if it weren’t for the support of her husband and family she wouldn’t be here to tell her story.
“My message to ACC is that they really need to have a really good look at their systems. It’s a cruel process. I don’t think it has to be this hard.”
Where to get help:
Rape Crisis 0800 88 33 00, click link for local helplines.
Victim Support 0800 842 846.
Safetalk text 4334, phone 0800 044 334 webchat safetotalk.nz or email support@safetotalk.nz.
The Harbour Online support and information for people affected by sexual abuse.
Women’s Refuge 0800 733 843
Male Survivors Aotearoa Helplines across NZ, click to find out more (males only).
Are You OK? 0800 456 450 for free and confidential 24/7 support and information about family violence.
If you or someone else is in immediate danger, call 111.
If you or someone you know is in a dangerous situation, click the Shielded icon at the bottom of this website to contact Women's Refuge in a safe and anonymous way without it being traced in your browser history. If you're in our app, visit the mobile website here to access Shielded.