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Accusations of Abuse in
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Dominion Post
January 16, 2004
Violent upbringings away from home
By Fran Tyler
A group of about 45 men who say they suffered abuse in boys' homes are planning
legal action against the Crown. Fran Tyler spoke to some of them about their
experiences.
Think back to when you were 10 years old. Remember long afternoons playing
cricket with your friends, summers spent at the beach and the security of
knowing that when you woke from a nightmare you could go to your parents' room
for comfort.
Now imagine waking up to the nightmare of finding you have been taken away from
those secure surroundings and thrown into an institution where violence was the
culture and adults could not be trusted – some were just as keen as your peers
to take a fist to you and some who said they would protect you wanted sex in
return.
How different would your life have turned out if this had happened to you?
Five men who experienced that say it robbed them of their childhoods, their
education and led them to jail as adults.
All five had been state wards at some time during the 1960s and 1970s, inmates
at juvenile institutions. The intention of the homes was to rehabilitate and
educate children who had got into trouble but all five say they were nothing
but breeding grounds for criminals, that left them uneducated and unable to fit
into society.
Shane (not his real name) was an inmate at several boys' homes, starting when
he was 11. Now an inmate at Rimutaka Prison near
"Seven or eight fellas came out and welcomed me with a good hiding. It
just freaked me out – I had never experienced anything like that in my
life."
Soon after, he was slapped around the head by a staff member for refusing to
play scrag because he was still injured from the welcome stomping. After trying
to flee the home, he says he was locked in a cell for 23 hours a day and forced
to do extreme physical exercise in front of the other inmates in his one hour
out as punishment.
"I recall asking to see (a staff member) to complain about the way I was
being treated, and to speak to my social worker but access was denied and I was
subjected to another beating for narking.
"When I finally did get to see them I was told I deserved what I got
because I ran away. When asked why I ran, I said I was in fear of my life . . .
I was told to toughen up."
After he finished his punishment for absconding he was taken to the gym and
"given the worst beating of my life" by the other inmates, while
staff members stood and watched. No medical attention was offered for his
injuries.
Shane swore not to be beaten again and taught himself how to fight, eventually
becoming known as the home's King Pin (toughest kid).
"Ironically from being the boy who hated and feared being bashed I was the
one giving out the bashings and first in line to welcome the new boys."
His need to protect himself set him on a path of violence that he continued in
adulthood. Now 33, he has amassed 23 convictions, nine for assault and two for
assaulting police.
"I had a violent upbringing, but none of it was at home. It all started
from being in Social Welfare custody," he says.
Another of the five, who did not want to be named, claimed he was raped at
least nine times by a staff member at Hokio Beach Training Centre in return for
chocolates, lollies and cigarettes.
When he was eventually left alone, another boy took his place.
Summoning up the courage to tell another staff member about the abuse, they
were told they were liars.
Another Hokio resident, Tony, also not his real name, said his need for
protection from the violent environment there led him to an affiliation with
the Mongrel Mob that continues today.
But the biggest loss for him was the lack of schooling.
"My education was robbed," he says. "I could have been someone,
but there I became nothing, I learnt nothing."
Tony went on to be, not the truck driver that he had hoped, but a career drug
dealer.
Another who went on to be a drug dealer was Ian. A slight man, Ian found it
particularly difficult to fend off the staff and other inmates at Hokio.
"The staff were physically violent. They hit you with closed fist –
punches and punches to head, arms and legs."
He was so traumatised from his 2-1/2 years in the institution that when he was
released and returned home to his family in Porirua he locked himself in his
room, refusing to have contact with anyone.
It was a fascination with cars that drove Mark Haddon into Social Welfare care
at the age of eight.
"I'd just go for joyrides," he said. "But maybe I was grabbing
out for attention too."
Whatever his motives, his antics landed him in Epuni Boys' Home and away from
his home in Avalon with his mum, dad and three brothers.
"I spent three days alone in a cell waiting to be classified . . . and it
was all bad from there on in. I just wanted out of there."
New entrants to the home were welcomed with a delousing treatment which
involved being coated from head to toe with a white lice-killing powder then
hosed off under a cold shower. Punishments at the home were harsh and excessive
and staff drove home the point that inmates did not nark.
"I was kicked in the arse, cracked across the head and belted with a chain
with keys on it."
For eight-year-old Mark the experience was so terrifying that he made a bid for
freedom and the safety of home, only to be dragged back to Epuni and locked in
his cell as punishment.
"It was like a military camp," he said.
Eventually he got to go home, but his experience did little to stop him from
taking other people's cars and he was sent back to the institution several more
times, eventually ending up at Hokio at the aged of 12.
"It was pretty terrifying if you were a little white boy," he said.
Mark was welcomed in the usual way with a beating and the violence continued
from there.
"If you stuffed up you got the bash," he says.
If sent to the punishment wing, inmates were locked down for long periods in a
cell and given no blankets, sometimes being beaten by staff, he says.
Education fell by the wayside, many inmates left there being unable to read or
write and told by staff they would do nothing more than graduate into the adult
prison system.
Mark has met 40 or 50 other men in prison over the years who had been to homes.
"I don't know anyone that went through there that made it (without ending
up in prison). If there is, I'd like to meet him."