Allegations of Sexual
Abuse |
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The allegations have been made
against a former employee of a children's home run by the organisation. The
alleged offender is now in his eighties. Today Trevor Roberts, a spokesman
for the Wellington-based Central Region branch of the organisation, confirmed
that two sexual abuse claims had been received and investigated and it had
recently been made aware of another two allegations. Mr Roberts said the organisation
had a pretty robust policy in respect to such allegations. "When an allegation of any sort
is received, whether it's a failure of care or something more serious, we
investigate it to the extent that we can for our own purposes," he told
National Radio. "If there's an allegation of
criminal conduct we urge that the matter be dealt with by the police." He said it was the complainants'
role to go to the police. "When it comes to a matter of
criminal conduct we're not really equipped to deal with allegations like
that." He said that internal
investigations had been carried out in respect of two of the individuals
concerned. and both of the complainants were recommended to go to the police.
Mr Roberts said that
investigations were made more difficult by that fact that many of the people
who could talk about the allegations were dead. |