Sex abuse and drugs:

A new documentary on TVNZ 1 lifts the lid on the Centrepoint commune, which started north of Auckland in the 70s, and reveals what really went on there. Melenie Parkes reports.

Lifting the lid on the Centrepoint commune.

Children picked through boxes of clothes to find something to wear each day. There were no walls enclosing the bathrooms and the toilets sat mere feet apart.

Women gave birth in a meeting hall with everyone present and adults shed their clothes to prove their willingness to shed their inhibitions. Any sense of privacy or autonomy was stripped from the residents of Centrepoint.

It was supposed to be an open environment where everything was shared, but what began as a therapy-based commune devolved into a place where the sexual abuse of children, drug use and manufacture was rampant under the leadership of Bert Potter.

A Massey University study found that one in three children were probably abused at the commune in Albany on Auckland’s North Shore.

Heaven And Hell – The Centrepoint Story explores the commune’s origins in the late 70s and the long road to exposing the crimes committed there and prosecuting the perpetrators.

Producer/director Natalie Malcon says of the 60 former adult residents of Centrepoint they located, just four were willing to be interviewed for the documentary. Some of the former child residents also speak about their harrowing experiences.

“The biggest challenge was finding people who would talk,” says Malcon. “The children wanted to talk, the children wanted the story to be told but the adults... I kept getting told, ‘Let sleeping dogs lie. The story’s been told, why do we

want to rehash this again?’ But for the children, the story is not over. It’s not over for them. They want acknowledgment. They don’t want it swept under the carpet any more.”

Although he lacked any formal qualifications, Bert Potter was able to convince hundreds of people that he held the answers to their problems.

“He obviously had a lot of charisma,” says Malcon. “And like all leaders, I guess he had some good qualities for people to want to join.”

Potter was a former travelling salesman who picked up many of his techniques from therapeutic encounter groups in the United States and then used them to prey upon the vulnerable.

Women seeking mental health support were directed to Centrepoint, where they and their children were abused under the guise of therapy.

Malcon says options were limited for people needing psychological help. So a place like Centrepoint, where children were welcomed, seemed an attractive proposition.

“There just wasn’t really anything else out there. So people were being referred (to Centrepoint) by their GPs. They were being referred there by helplines.”

Malcon was surprised to find that for many people, the history of Centrepoint was largely unknown.

“I thought the story had already been told. Most people under the age of about 40 have very, very little knowledge of it or had not even heard of it.”

Even for those who lived through it, their understanding of what happened is fragmented.

“Something that was really interesting in the research process was that most people that I spoke to, their knowledge of Centrepoint began sort of the day that they joined Centrepoint and ended when they left and they had very little knowledge of what happened before and what happened after,” says Malcon.

As well as interviews and archival footage, Heaven And Hell – The Centrepoint Story also uses re-enactments to replicate the atmosphere of the commune. Malcon says re-enactments were filmed at the facility that was once Centrepoint.

“The first time I went there I expected it to feel really sort of eerie and dark and not somewhere that I would want to be, but it’s actually a beautiful place.”

Allegations were raised about Potter and Centrepoint almost from the outset. But it wasn’t until 1990 that Potter was finally convicted, initially on drug charges.

“It took a couple of dogged policemen to really keep going and keep investigating,” says Malcon

Some people seemed to turn a blind eye to what was happening but others kept up the fight.

Barbara B, a neighbour who rang alarm bells about Centrepoint, also appears in the documentary as does policeman Dene Thomas, who was told to drop his investigation but remained convinced something was not right.

Malcon says they are “profoundly affected by what happened at Centrepoint. They’re still very emotional about it.”

“But for the children, the story is not over. They want acknowledgment. They don’t want it swept under the carpet any more.” – Natalie Malcon