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Accusations of Abuse in Institutions

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Wairarapa Times-Age
January 21, 2004

Former govt home residents say they were locked in attic

Past residents of the former government-run Fareham House in the Wairarapa town of Featherston say they were locked in an attic for weeks on end or forced to clean a hall floor with a toothbrush.

Fareham House last week joined other former Department of Social Welfare homes around New Zealand in facing allegations of abuse from the 1960s and 1970s.

About 60 people are suing the Government over their treatment. They are mostly former inmates of Epuni Boys Home in Lower Hutt, Hokio Beach Training Centre near Levin, Campbell Park School in Otekaike, North Otago, Miramar Girls Receiving Home in Wellington, Kohitere Boys Training Centre in Levin as well as Fareham, during the 1960s and 1970s.

Wellington lawyer Sonja Cooper, who is representing at least three Fareham House claimants, said allegations about Fareham House were of emotional rather than physical or sexual abuse.

"One of our clients was made to scrub the hall on her hands and knees with a toothbrush."

Ms Cooper said the girls claimed to have been locked away in an isolation room or an attic room "for being bad".

The windows in the attic room on the third floor of the old house were so high the girls couldn't see out, she said.

"At one stage (one of the girls) was locked up for 17 days because she had raided the kitchen for a midnight feast.

"She was only allowed out for 15 minutes a day for a shower."

Three former residents at Fareham House said they were "dumped" into Porirua Hospital" by the same psychiatrist.

Porirua Hospital is a psychiatric facility while the 24-bed Fareham House was for wayward girls .

Ms Cooper has also acted for former residents of Salvation Army homes who claim they were abused in care and she said it appeared the problem was widespread in New Zealand in the 1960s and 1970s.

"I don't know what it says about New Zealand society at that time.

"If you were in a organisation that was public or outside your family, you were likely to be a victim of abuse."

The Department of Social Welfare's modern equivalent, Child, Youth and Family, has said it had no knowledge of the claims and could not comment.

Meanwhile, Ms Cooper said stories she had been told by five former Campbell Park School residents were among the worst she had heard.

"Sexual abuse there was the main thing. It was perpetuated by staff -- quite a large number of staff, and older boys."

The younger boys, who would arrive at about the age of nine or 10, were routinely subjected to abuse almost as a form of initiation in the playing fields, she said.

Boys considered "intellectually impaired" and had caused difficulties at regular schools were sent to the school at a large estate at Otekaieke, between Duntroon and Kurow in the Waitaki Valley.