|
|
Allegations
of Abuse in Institutions |
|
|
|
|
Te Awamutu brothers
Murray and Bruce Bain have fought for 23 years to get justice for their
little brother. Grant Bain was 17 when
he was threatened with a loaded .223 rifle and shot in the neck at the
barracks of the Army's Waiouru cadet school. They say they will
never accept the fact that the cadet responsible was charged only with
causing death by carelessly misusing a firearm. It was February 13,
1981, when corporal Andrew William Read, 17, threatened Grant. Grant pushed
the gun away and it fired. Police charged Read
with careless use of a firearm, he pleaded guilty and received a $200 fine
and 200 hours' community service. His community service
was done at the Waiouru Army golf course and Read faced no other disciplinary
action. Attempts by the Herald to contact Read have proved fruitless. But Grant's brothers
have always said the Army covered up their brother's death. Now the detective who
interviewed and charged Read has told the Herald Read should have faced a
charge of manslaughter but his superior in the police, the late Detective
Senior Sergeant Rob Butler, would not allow it. Retired Detective
Sergeant Piers Hunt says the charge never sat well with him. "It was pretty
straightforward. Even if it was an accident, his use of the firearm [in
pointing it at Grant] was unlawful. "He did it as a
deliberate act. It wasn't two hunters climbing through a fence and the
firearm accidentally goes off." Herald reports from the
time show the judge at Read's sentencing, Judge D. Lowe, felt a more
appropriate charge could have been laid. Judge Lowe said everyone knew a
rifle should not be pointed at anyone. It was reported Read's
defence counsel, S. J. Taylor, said Read had "sincerely believed the
round to be dead". There had been no
animosity between the two. Mr Taylor said the incident was
"high-spiritedness, but gross irresponsibility". A former military
police officer, Lance Corporal Pete Patterson, who was in charge of Grant's
body after the shooting, said Read had loaded an M16 rifle with a live round,
from which he had removed the nose, and fired it at another cadet's arm
earlier the same day. The cadet was peppered
with gunpowder. "They [the Army]
covered up lots of things. I sat there for a whole night looking at this
young boy's dead body and I was only a young guy myself." Grant Bain's brother
Murray, a former cadet who rose to lance corporal at the Trentham Army base,
says beatings and night raids in the barracks were part of cadet life when he
went through the school in 1978. He started
investigating his brother's death after being told the Army was using a
picture of Grant dead on the barracks floor as a training aid. The Army had told his
family Grant had died while doctors tried to save him in hospital. Murray Bain says the
family were never told about the charge Read faced. "We were having
his funeral the day the court case was on," said Mr Bain. Over the past three
years Mr Bain has battled through the Ombudsman to get the Army files which
detail concerns about violence at the school and that the barracks were being
supervised by senior cadets who were "boys themselves". Bruce Bain says the
family want acknowledgement of what the cadet school and Read did to Grant. Murray Bain met Read
the day he killed Grant. He was on a training
exercise at Waiouru from Trentham and visited Grant at the cadet school on
his way home for weekend leave, asking if he wanted anything. "He said he wanted
his rugby boots. He said 'meet my room commander'. I shook his hand." |
