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Allegations
of Abuse in Institutions |
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Wellington: The mother
of a woman accusing Catholic Social Services of negligence rejected her own
children and refused to have them reunited, a judge has been told. The mother took little
interest in her seven children and placed her three daughters with the
Sisters of Mercy at St Josephs orphanage, Upper Hutt, lawyer Greg Thomas said
in the High Court at Wellington yesterday. One of the daughters,
now 45, is claiming $550,000 alleging she was emotionally, physically,
verbally, and sexually abused during the years she was in Catholic care
between 1968 and 1977. Her name is suppressed. Acting for Wellington’s
Roman Catholic Archdiocese and Catholic Social Services, its main social
service agency, Mr Thomas said the court should be sceptical about the
woman’s credibility. Her claim was not
accepted on factual and legal grounds. Evidence would be given
that the plaintiff’s mother placed her daughters at the orphanage after her
marriage ended. Although still legally
in her custody, she gave their care and control over to the Sisters of Mercy.
She took little
interest in them and when Catholic Social Services tried to reunite the
children, the mother refused, Mr Thomas said. CSS’s only formal role
was to check the private homes that were host to the children on holidays. The Sisters of Mercy
and the orphanage trust board will present their defence to the woman’s
claims later in the case. It is expected to end next week. Mr Thomas said the
court should guard against the risk of judging past behaviour by current
standards. A former CSS director,
whose name was suppressed, said few of the children in Catholic orphanages
were actually orphans. Most were from broken homes and the parents rarely
gave financial support. The nuns had day-to-day
care of the children and guarded their independence jealously, the witness
said. Earlier, psychiatrist
John Crawshaw told the court the plaintiff was very disturbed and needed
intensive help. He gave possible causes of her mental state but stopped short
of saying definitively what had caused it, or whether her allegations about
the way she was treated were true. The plaintiff’s final
witnesses had been at the orphanage or St Josephs School in Upper Hutt. One said she remembered
good things about the orphanage but saw some of the girls treated differently.
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