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Allegations
of Abuse in Institutions |
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Nearly 300 former cadet
soldiers have now contacted the former cadet who has claimed there was
decades of abuse at the cadet training school at Waiouru. Ian Fraser says he
believes a third of the thousands of cadets suffered abuse at the school
which operated between 1948 and 1991. Mr Fraser on Sunday
claimed there had been widespread "physical, psychological and sexual
abuse" of cadets as young as 15 at the school from the 1960s until the
1980s. Defence Minister Mark
Burton has ordered a preliminary inquiry into the allegations and Prime
Minister Helen Clark has promised they will not be swept under the carpet. Speaking from his home
in Perth, Mr Fraser, 50, said today a steady flow of one-time cadets had
contacted him since Sunday and he was "on his way to 300". "There's been an
enormous amount of support – I've had only two people have a go at me. I was
expecting a lot more. The level of support for the can of worms that I've
opened here has been astounding, and the stories are gut-wrenching." Mr Fraser said he had
been analysing the messages he had received and believed nearly a third of
all cadets at Waiouru had suffered some sort of serious abuse. He said there were
about 300 cadets at school at any one time. They could join from 15
years of age and went into the regular army at 17½. "On average, most
spent about 18 months at the school." Mr Fraser claimed a
number of cadet lives had ended at the school in death or suicide and he had
heard of eight or nine in this category. "It might have
been written down as a training accident. It could have been written down as
a bit of hooliganism." He had been told of
about a dozen sexual assaults. Most shocking of the stories
to come out in past days has been the death of Grant Bain, shot by Corporal
Andrew William Read, who was later convicted of carelessly misusing a
firearm. Mr Fraser, now an IT
project manager, said he had only recently been prompted to come forward. "I lost the plot
about a year ago, to be quite frank. In the process of rebuilding myself one
of the things I felt I needed to do, to get this out of my system, was to
start writing down my own experiences." He said he had then
talked to other former cadets. "The deeper I got into it, the more I
felt there was a real serious problem. They had really had their lives messed
up." NZ First MP Ron Mark,
himself a former cadet at Waiouru, today suggested the bullying and abuse
situation was no worse at Waiouru than at any other boarding school. Mr Fraser disagreed.
"I think he's had his head in the sand." He said the Government
needed to be called to account. "There was a duty
of care. I believe the army and the Government failed in that duty of
care" and justice was needed – "an acknowledgement that what
happened was wrong." Mr Fraser added:
"Hopefully, and from my discussions with the Minister of Defence he's
taking this really seriously, the guys who need some assistance can actually
get some assistance – whatever that takes, counselling, medical treatment.
The Government (needs to) acknowledge that it failed in its duty of care and
do something to help get these guys' lives back in order. Mr Burton had been
"absolutely brilliant" Mr Fraser said, but not so the army.
"They haven't been exactly co-operative." Mr Fraser said he had
been beaten up on a weekly basis at Waiouru and had been bashed with a rifle
butt. The sound of boots on
lino still filled him with horror. "It's still an effort for me to open
up about it." |
