Nikki Macdonald
Johnny Bentley-Cribb’s father died in Wellington Hospital’s mental health unit when Johnny was just 11. Now 18, he’s joined a youth collective fighting for mental health reform. reports.
The memories are few and fading. Trips to the dairy. Eating junk food together. But Johnny Bentley-Cribb figures there’s one sure way to keep the memory of his dad alive. By trying to live the life he couldn’t.
After 14 years bouncing around the mental health system, 34-year-old Mario Cribb died in unexplained circumstances in 2017, while in the legal care of Wellington Hospital’s mental health unit.
“He had all this potential, he could have had an amazing, stellar life. He was one of the best rugby players in college. And then it was all taken away from him, essentially. Because the system is so s..., and because it’s so broken.
“I’m just trying to use what I have, to do what I can, because he didn’t get to.”
On Tuesday, at 12.30pm, Bentley-Cribb (Ngāti Kauwhata, Ngāti Raukawa ki te Tonga) will stand in front of parliament to call for mental health reform, as part of a rally by youth advocacy group Mental Health Matters Initiative.
From tragedy he wants to build transformation, from the mental health system he believes failed his dad, to the Coroners Court that took five years to investigate his death, and then gave the family no answers.
“That’s what grounds everything I do. I wouldn’t be here today if Dad didn’t die and if the whole injustice of that - of the inquest - hadn’t happened. Because that’s what really made me go ‘Wow, I need to do something about it’.”
Diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder at the age of 20, Cribb was admitted to mental health inpatient units 17 times in 13 years. Eventually, in 2016, he robbed a petrol station and landed in prison.
Having had art therapy, drug treatment programmes and psychologist visits in jail, he emerged a new man. But with minimal support transitioning back into the community, Cribb ended up high on cannabis and playing chicken with cars, one of which ran over his ankle.
He was admitted to Wellington Hospital’s mental health unit under the Mental Health Act. As well as treating his mental health, doctors gave him opiate pain medication codeine for the injury. A week later he was found dead, with fatal levels of pain drugs.
His family were left to believe his death was a suspected suicide, although that’s not how the coroner was treating it.
Then a pupil at Upper Hutt’s Fergusson Intermediate, Bentley-Cribb was too young to understand what had happened. He got grief counselling from his school counsellor, which morphed into coping strategies for anxiety.
And then he mostly forgot about the mental health system, until 2022, when the coroner finally investigated his father’s death.
“The inquest sparked everything up again. That was when I kind of realised that government institutions and government bodies try and do their best but ultimately, they fail a lot of people, and the mental health system is example of that.”
While he wanted to speak up for reform he figured, “I’m one person, I can’t change
“That’s the number one place where we learn, and young people grow through. I don’t think in that space you’re taught how to love yourself, or how to be comfortable with yourself. You’re taught reading, writing, maths... But you also need that kind of holistic understanding of mental health, which isn’t provided, unless you’re fortunate like me.”
the world”. But then he found out about Mental Health Matters Initiative, a youth collective founded by former Kāpiti College head of school Amy Skipper, in October 2022.
“We’re a bunch of 15-18-year-olds, trying to take on a massive, massive challenge... We’re essentially saying ‘Enough is enough. The youth are here and we care about mental health, and it’s been too long’.”
So what needs to change? Hanging around Bentley-Cribb’s neck is a pounamu pendant his whānau gave him for his 18th birthday. It includes elements representing different members of his family.