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Allegations
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Former cadets furious over report The cadet abuse issue
is not settled, the former army sergeant who sparked the inquiry says. Ian Fraser has been
contacted by former cadets furious that the report by former High Court judge
David Morris had played down the seriousness of what went on at the Waiouru
cadet school between 1948 and 1991. A former company
commander of the school also disagreed with Judge Morris' finding that there
was no culture of violence. Mr Fraser said:
"There's a lot of anger at the army's homing in on the claim that there
was no culture of violence, when their own documentation contradicts them on
that point. They feel it has been watered down." The apology by Defence
Minister Phil Goff was a good move, but "at the same time as they are
saying sorry they are trying to minimise the damage. "If you accept
responsibility you need to take it on the chin", Mr Fraser said. It was acknowledged
there was insufficient supervision in the cadet school, and that cadets were
largely unsupervised at night. The claim that regular
force staff were not involved was "duck shoving". The army set up
the school and ran it. "They cannot run away from their responsibility
here." The shooting of Cadet
Grant Bain, the suicide of another cadet, the death of a cadet who died
jumping off the back of a truck and of another in a stolen Land Rover all
clearly demonstrated a culture of violence. He could not believe
there was no collusion between the police and the army over the decision to
charge Bain's killer, cadet Corporal Andrew Read, with careless use of a
firearm rather than manslaughter. "It must have
happened. It's okay to say errors of judgment were made, but lumping it all
on a now dead police sergeant and saying it was his error of judgment -- how
convenient is that?" Timothy Rabbidge, who
was in charge of the school in 1981, when Bain was killed, said there was
"an awful lot of bullying" at the camp but he was powerless to
prevent it. NZ First MP Ron Mark
has revealed that he was accused of being a bully at the cadet training
school. It had not been a
"Sunday school", but the hard learning environment had turned out
many New Zealand leaders, Mr Mark told National Radio. He revealed that
allegations had been made against him, which he denied. "All sorts of
people make all sorts of allegations and yes there was an allegation . . . I
did respond to that." Asked what the nature
of the allegation was, Mr Mark said: "I am not even going to give it
airtime." Meanwhile, Wellington
lawyer Roger Chapman, who has filed a $400,000 lawsuit on behalf of an
allegedly abused former cadet, challenged Mr Goff's statement that the
statute of limitations could be a problem for cadets attempting to sue the
Government. "The way the
statute of limitation works is that the time for lodging claims is suspended
if you are under a disability, and often in this kind of situation people are
psychiatrically seriously damaged and people are not capable of taking
action," he said. |
