Claims state care boys abused by clergy

A survivor of abuse in state care has alleged children were taken from a Wellington boys’ home and prostituted out to Catholic Church officials.

Keith Wiffin made the claims at a hearing for the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care yesterday and alleged the church is currently investigating the allegations.

Wiffin claimed boys were taken from Epuni boys’ home in Lower Hutt in a van by a housemaster, Alan Moncrief-Wright, to a church site, where clergymen would walk around the van looking at the boys, selecting the ones they wanted to sexually abuse.

The Catholic Church has been approached for comment regarding the allegations.

A previous ward of the state himself, Wiffin, now aged 61, lived at Epuni from age 11 and suffered sexual abuse at the hands of Moncrief-Wright.

Wiffin has previously given evidence to the commission on two occasions.

Moncrief-Wright was later convicted and jailed on a number of sexual violation charges against boys and is now dead.

At yesterday’s hearing, Wiffin told the commission while he did not experience the practice involving the church officials himself, he did take many excursions in the van, which was always driven by Moncrief-Wright.

The housemaster would take boys to pick up videos and lollies for the Saturday night entertainment and would sometimes take groups of boys to see movies.

‘‘In relatively recent times what has come to my attention is that boys were driven in that van to a Catholic Church facility in the area where some boys were selected by church officials to be sexually abused.’’

Wiffin said he learnt of the claims after hearing an investigation was being conducted by the church about the practice and from another man, who was also previously a ward of the state and lived at Epuni around the same time as Wiffin.

At the hearing, Wiffin spoke of the other abuse he witnessed at the home and described some housemasters as some of the ‘‘most violent people he’s ever seen’’.

Wiffin was the last witness to provide evidence in the residential homes hearings, which started on May 3 and finished yesterday.

The next hearings will begin on June 14, focusing on evidence about abuse of children and young people in the Child and Adolescent Unit at Lake Alice psychiatric hospital in the 1970s.