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Allegations
of Abuse in Institutions |
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Defence Minister Mark
Burton is preparing to seek Cabinet approval on Monday for an independent
inquiry into brutality and sex-abuse claims by hundreds of former Army
cadets. Army staff will
continue working through the weekend on a review of records on its disbanded
Waiouru cadet school, for a report for Mr Burton to take to his cabinet
colleagues. Yesterday, after the
Herald reported that the minister had received claims by two former cadets
that they were raped at Waiouru, he announced he was considering options for
"an appropriate independent process" to respond to allegations
about the school. Although Perth-based
former cadet Ian Fraser has yet to send Mr Burton a full dossier of about 300
complaints he has compiled alleging brutality at the school from the 1960s to
1980s, he has forwarded the two rape complaints to the minister for urgent
police action. The police had yet to
receive the rape allegations by late yesterday, and a spokeswoman for the
minister said he would not comment on individual cases. Mr Fraser said he did
not believe the minister's announcement went far enough, and called for
someone of the standing of Erebus air disaster commissioner, the late Justice
Peter Mahon, to head an independent inquiry. Mr Fraser was concerned
that Mr Burton was relying on the Army to sift through records before
deciding what shape the inquiry was to take. Mr Burton said in a
statement that he had consulted Attorney-General Margaret Wilson at length
over the cadet school and was bringing together advice from the Crown Law Office
and State Service Commission. Army chief
Major-General Mateparae said he was very concerned about the serious nature
of allegations raised. Army spokesman Major
Murray Brown said the abolition of junior and senior cadet classes at the
school in 1983, in favour of a single rank structure, did much to suppress
bullying there. Former National Party
MP for Waipa Marilyn Waring confirmed yesterday that she had tried to raise
concerns by the Te Awamutu-based Bain family, who's son Grant was killed in a
shooting incident, about the case at the time with then Defence Minister, the
late David Thomson, but to no avail. She said she had asked
the Alexander Turnbull Library to return her files so she could turn them
over to the new inquiry. |
