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NZ Herald
December 1 2005; 17:00
Report clears cadet school of 'culture of violence'
by Ian Llewellyn
An army cadet who killed
a fellow cadet at a training school in 1981 should have been charged with
manslaughter, an inquiry into abuse at the former cadet school has found.
The inquiry also says
other complainants should take their cases to the police.
An inquiry into a number
abuse allegations at the cadet training school in Waiouru between 1948 and 1991
found that were cases of bullying and in some instances serious sexual
assaults, but there was no culture of violence.
Defence Minister Phil Goff
was cool to the idea of compensation for victims and said those who wanted to
take the matter further should lay a criminal complaint.
The review by former High
Court Judge David Morris also looked at events surrounding the killing of Cadet
Grant Bain in 1981, who was shot by another cadet.
Justice Morris found that
Cadet Corporal Andrew Read, the man who shot Bain, should have been charged
with manslaughter, and that the army and the police did not handle the case
well.
Mr Goff said he would be
talking to Mr Bain's family who are seeking an apology, costs and compensation.
Justice Morris found that
there was a lack of monitoring in the barracks and there was "a real
possibility" the fatal shooting could have been prevented.
"As to the claims
for compensation and damages, the family has undoubtedly suffered considerable
trauma," Justice Morris said.
Mr Bain was 17 years old
and had only been a cadet for three weeks when he was killed by Read.
Mr Morris said that there
was no collusion between the army and the police over the charges that Read
pleaded guilty to -- carelessly discharging a firearm causing death -- but the
police had not used the appropriate charge.
Justice Morris believed
that Read would have been imprisoned for four years if the more serious charge
had been laid.
The army should also have
used internal disciplinary measures against the corporal and had also
misinformed the Bain family about the shooting.
Read died in 1998 in a
forestry accident on the West Coast, aged 35.
Justice Morris said the
army had failed to supervise the use of ammunition, Read had too much authority
over junior cadets and a code of silence at the barracks meant earlier
incidents had not set off alarm bells with the army.
The inquiry found that
for a period senior cadets had been responsible for looking after their juniors
with little after hours supervision from regular army soldiers.
"Its effect was to
place 15-and-a-half-year-olds to 16-year-olds under the control and dominance
of others in many cases but a few months older than their charges,"
Justice Morris said.
"Teenagers were
being taught how to kill during the day and put in charge of their fellow
teenagers at night. The situation was a fertile ground for bullying."
The inquiry was ordered
after a former Waiouru cadet, Ian Fraser, claimed in October last year there
had been widespread physical, psychological and sexual abuse of cadets as young
as 15 at the school from the 1960s to the 1980s.- NZPA