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Accusations of Abuse in Institutions

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Otago Daily Times
April 3, 2004

Caregivers accused
NZPA

Auckland: Child Youth and Family caregivers have been accused of beating and abusing teenagers sent to live at a state-run home for boys.

Police are interviewing all 50 youths who were placed in care at Windrush Close, a six-bed home owned by CYF in Mangere, last year.

The New Zealand Herald understands at least two families have laid formal complaints of assault.

CYF said yesterday it closed the home for a week late last year and removed the caregivers after receiving a complaint of abuse.

Ken Rand, the agency's acting director of operational support services, said the complaint was investigated internally, and then referred to police for a full investigation.

"Child, Youth and Family takes any allegation of abuse very seriously and, as is usual practice, took immediate steps to investigate.

"After completing its own investigation, Child Youth and Family referred the matter to police."

The complaint which sparked the internal investigation came from a CYF worker's son who was living at Windrush Close.

The boy's father, Grant Harris, said the CYF worker contacted him last year and told him about an investigation.

His son, now 15, told him he was assaulted in a room, and had heard the screams of other boys taken into the same room.

"They were hit with something that looked like a cushion but was rock hard and didn't leave marks. They were thrown against walls."

He blames his son's CYF case manager for an alleged final beating involving a pair of pliers.

The teenager telephoned his Otara-based case manager, and said she rang back and spoke to the caregivers.

"That night, my son was brutally dealt to," he said. -