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Allegations
of Abuse in Institutions |
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Cadets who trained at
Waiouru came out ``bettered, not battered'', a former army cadet from Nelson
says as abuse allegations continue to mount. Defence Minister Mark
Burton's office has received more than 60 calls since he ordered an inquiry
yesterday. Prime Minister Helen Clark described the abuse allegations as
``shocking'' and said the Government was moving as quickly as possible to
investigate them. ``There are in effect
allegations of at least manslaughter, allegations of rape, allegations of
serious assault. ``I think we are at the
preliminary stage of trying to gauge what the dimensions of this are, but the
kind of allegations we've heard are quite shocking. ``Certainly the
Government has no desire whatsoever to see allegations of brutality swept
under the carpet.'' Ian Fraser, the former
cadet who raised the issue, said he had received more than 100 e-mails
supporting his claims since releasing a report on the Internet on Sunday. He
says the army knew about the abuse and ignored it. But Nelson resident
Steve Older, a cadet at Waiouru in 1974, finds the abuse allegations hard to
believe. ``I guess it depends on
your viewpoint of what's abuse. A lot of what went on wouldn't be considered
politically correct today. ``I don't think there
was anything excessive. I think most of the people that went through cadets
came out of it with the belief they were bettered, not battered.'' He was not aware of any
abuse occurring while there. Second-year cadets had
rank. If abuse did occur, it could have come from these cadets, he said. ``Some of them could
have had their ranks go to their heads and overstepped the mark. If you give
a 16 or 17-year-old a lot of authority, they don't have the maturity to deal
with it.'' There were 180 cadets
in his year, and a number of those did not complete their training, although
Mr Older did not know why. He said he would be
watching the inquiry to see what it turned up. ``I think it will be
interesting to see what transpires, but I think that over the years, the vast
majority of cadets would have been empowered by it (their training.) I
personally came out of it a lot stronger.'' The worst of a spate of
allegations of violent abuse at the school involves the killing of
17-year-old cadet Grant Bain in February 1981 when a rifle pointed at him by
another cadet was fired accidentally. The cadet who fired the
gun, 17-year-old Corporal Andrew William Read, was convicted of careless use
of a firearm. The former police officer who investigated the case has said he
believed Read should have been charged with manslaughter, but his view was
overruled by his superiors. Colonel Brain Monk, the
officer in charge of the army schools in the 1980s, said it was a ``tragedy
which occurred on my watch over 20 years ago''. He instituted the court
of inquiry into the incident. The inquiry found that
another cadet, Lance Corporal Andrew Read, loaded his rifle and fired it at
Grant Bain during a ``western movie'' type of confrontation. Colonel Monk said Read
was discharged from the army shortly after the incident. ``I was concerned about
resourcing. I suspect the army was going through yet another retrenchment and
limitation on resources,'' he said on National Radio. ``There's no way you
could lay on 24/7 supervision of cadets... but I would be astounded if
dedicated officers and NCOs were not doing the very best possible for the
cadets.'' The NZ Herald reported today that former All Black Stan
``Tiny'' Hill ran the barracks during the years the alleged abuses took
place. Now 77, he said he had never assaulted a cadet, although he believed
some non-commissioned officers may have overstepped the mark. |
