Victims retraumatised due to systemic failures of state
Systemic failures have been identified in the handling of abuse claims by the state, which left survivors retraumatised and ‘‘frequently disbelieved’’, an interim report by the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care has found.
Laws tilted against survivors and aggressive Crown lawyers contributed to the wide-ranging criticism of the Government’s approach. That resulted in a promise to review the Limitation Act, which Crown Law has used many times to successfully defend itself against the abuse claims, even when the courts found the abuse did occur.
Since the five-year inquiry was established in 2018, 1900 survivors and about 350 witnesses have registered with the commission.
The main report, Ta¯wharau: Pu¯rongo a te Wa¯ , was one of three released yesterday, which provided a summary of the commission’s work to date, gathered from private and public hearings.
It found abuse in care continues to happen in New Zealand today.
Survivors have experienced a range of problems during the inquiry’s process, including how the Limitation Act is used.
Under the law, which was updated as recently as 2010, abuse victims who do not bring a claim within six years of the offending are highly likely to have it dismissed by the courts.
This limit was identified as one of many legal barriers to hundreds of survivors receiving justice.
This and other legal barriers, such as laws protecting staff privacy and accident compensation laws that prevents claimants from suing for injury, means
that the Crown has been able to fight off claims of abuse even when the judge found that a claimant was abused.
The Government had been so successful in deflecting those claims, the commission found, that it had deterred many victims from coming forward.
‘‘Of the hundreds of claimants who have filed cases in courts, only a handful have ever had their claims fully heard. Of those claims, very few were decided in favour of the claimant,’’ the report said.
The report found survivors who made claims were frequently disbelieved and forced to retell their experiences, which they found retraumatising.
The commission said it heard evidence that Crown Law and government agencies avoided paying compensation even when abuse was proven.
It found the state’s redress processes, including the Crown’s approach to civil claims, had been overly focused on the financial implications to the state, rather than on providing satisfactory compensation to survivors and ensuring their wellbeing.
‘‘The Crown has vigorously defended claims in court, while government agencies have developed alternative outof-court claims processes that survivors describe as protracted, lacking transparency, inconsistent and full of hurdles,’’ the report stated.
Public ServiceMinister Chris Hipkins said that over time the Crown had spent a disproportionate amount of its energy defending unacceptable behaviour, rather than taking a victim-centric approach.
‘‘That is a strategy we have already changed, and we are continuing to look at that. The Government will also continue work already under way on other problem areas raised by survivors, such as possible options for a centralised claims process and considering reforms to how the Limitation Act is used.’’
Survivor Grant West, who estimates he was subjected to sexual abuse by 60 to 80 men by the time he turned 18, said during the process of the commission, survivors were being made to feel like they had done something wrong.
‘‘I know when I brought my case against the Crown, they tried everything they could to discredit me and interrogated me when interviewed.
‘‘What survivors want more than anything to come out of this commission is to have been heard, to be believed, and for changes to be implemented into all Government agencies as well as with faith-based institutions that deal with children.’’