Abuse in care hearings begin

A man who was sexually and physically abused by family members ran away from home, only to face further abuse in state care.

The 63-year-old, identified only as Mr X, is one of 16 survivors giving evidence to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into abuse in care over the next two weeks at public hearings in Auckland.

X, who is of Samoan heritage, told the Commission he was adopted by his grandparents after his parents split up. He was then subjected to extreme violence, and would run away to escape the abuse.

One of the four institutions he frequented was Hokio Beach School, in Horowhenua.

He was transferred to Hokio Beach School from wairaka Boys Home in Auckland at 13 years old, where he was sexually abused.

A cook would pull the boys into the kitchen or behind the buildings, where no one could see. He would perform sexual acts on the boys, and force them to return the favour.

‘‘You go along with it to survive.

‘‘You had to go along with it.’’ At both institutions, the abusers would ‘‘reward’’ the boys with cigarettes.

‘‘You had to smoke them as a reward, as if you agreed to the abuse and were being a good little boy… If we weren’t smokers when we went in, we were damn well big smokers when we went out.’’

X referred to wairaka Boys Home in Auckland as a prison. He would spend days and weeks in solitary confinement, with steel doors and concrete walls.

‘‘We were lucky to get a shower once a week.

‘‘If they didn’t like you, you would get two or three meals a week.’’

He was forced to clean the toilets with a toothbrush, which he then had to use to brush his teeth.

He said guards would take boys to the shower block, and the boys would have to takeo¯‘‘rotating turns’’ of being raped and beaten.

He said those guards had a numbering system that resulted in Ma¯ori and Pasifika boys taking more of the abuse.

He caught an STD while at wairaka after being repeatedly raped.

X said he never received treatment, and it had left him unable to father children.

The racism at the institutions was extreme, he said.

‘‘If you had brown skin, you were going to get abused. Physically or sexually or both.’’

X said there was no one to talk to about the abuse, and he felt no one would believe him.

On two occasions he faked an injury to his hip and wound up in hospital, just for a break from the abuse.

He repeatedly ran away from wairaka and would be beaten on his return, but said it was worth it for the respite from the violence and sexual abuse. X said many of the staff would have known of the abuse and did nothing about it.

At 15, he was discharged from state care and told ‘‘see you later’’, he said.

That began his stretch of homelessness, which included living in Auckland’s Meyers Park and sleeping in the toilets if it rained.

He said he would never return to his family, where at 12 years old his grandfather chased him down the road with a machete, threatening to cut his head off, he said.

His aunt then called the police, and ‘‘I was taken to the police station and locked in a cell overnight’’.

On another occasion, he was kidnapped by a neighbour and raped, he said.

He ran away again that night. ‘‘What gets me is that nobody ever asked me why I kept running away, no social worker, no one.’’

The abuse had caused him to lose his identity as a Samoan, his family and relationships, he said.

He had since been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.

Some mornings he still jumped up, tears streaming down his eyes and sweating, thinking he was back in a state facility.

X said the struggle to get recognition and compensation had been an uphill battle, and he had only received a pittance.

He also spent time in Kohitere Boys Training Centre in Levin and Invercargill Borstal.