Beatings regular at state-run boys’ home
The night 13-year-old Daniel Rei arrived at Hamilton Boys’ Home was the first time he thought he was going to die.
He arrived at his room and was covered in a blanket, hit, kicked and punched repeatedly by other boys.
It ended in a black eye, swollen lips, loosened teeth and bruises.
But the beatings were far from over. ‘‘Later I’d find out [the violence] goes on in degrees, there’s kiddy stuff, and then it gets bigger and bigger and bigger,’’ Rei told the Royal Commission into Abuse in State Care.
Rei, 47, and another survivor, known as ‘‘PM’’, have spoken out about abuse at the Hamilton Boys’ Home, commonly known as Melville Boys’ Home, at the royal commission.
The home, previously located on Mount View Rd, operated between 1959 and the 1990s.
According to Oranga Tamariki, it was intended as a short stay for boys on remand or in state care, at varying times children between the ages of 8 and 17 years old stayed there. A spokesperson for the agency said it doesn’t have records of how many children lived there, but there were beds for 45.
When Rei arrived at Melville in July 1987, he said there were about 30 to 40 other boys there, and he was daunted by the cold, dormitory-setting.
‘‘It didn’t stop being daunting the entire time I was there.’’
He was racially bullied at Egmont Village Primary School, in Taranaki, and sexually abused by an uncle between the ages of 8 and 10, which set him upon a path of acting out, Rei said.
He had already been to Rosendale Family Home in New Plymouth where he was exposed to crime, drugs and sexual activity.
But Melville, where there was a constant threat of violence, was a ‘‘terrifying place’’.
Beatings from the other boys were regular, staff themselves assaulted the boys, and being told you were a ‘‘worthless piece of s...’’ was commonplace.
Scared, Rei tried to run away from the home twice: on his first night, and then several days later after another beating.
The second time he was found by police he was thrown in the ‘‘time out’’ room by one of the staff.
‘‘I remember at one point he was dragging me by my legs and my head was hitting the door jambs… I was crying, I did have a couple of burns and grazes, I think my ears were ringing.’’
He was locked in a narrow, storage room with no toilet facilities and had to urinate and defecate on the floor.
Rei was left to sleep in his own waste and was beaten by the staff member for not being able to ‘‘hold on’’.
Rei said the staff did nothing to stop the violence, unless it got to a point of very serious injury, because that required ‘‘paperwork’’.
‘‘[The staff] were concerned primarily with themselves and had become sadistic, desensitised to what was happening, and that was just the way it was, it was a control tool.’’
Rei went on to spend time at Kohitere Boys’ Training Centre in Levin, where he experienced more violence.
He joined Black Power and became involved in crime, spending a total of 18 years in and out of prison. In 2016, he was found not guilty of the manslaughter and murder of James
‘‘The staff treated us like cattle. I cried nearly all the time.’’
Daniel Rei
Poto Whatuira.
He told the commission he learned to be ‘‘angrier’’ in boys’ homes and attributed it to the start of his belief he was a criminal.
‘‘In sum, my time at Melville had nothing positive about it. The staff treated us like cattle. I cried nearly all the time.’’
A 46-year-old man, known as PM, was also sent to Hamilton Boys’ Home when he was 13 years old and stayed there between 1988 and 1991.
PM was immediately locked into the ‘‘secure unit’’, with bars on the windows, where he stayed for up to two weeks, he said.
‘‘I was quite distraught in there, I was beside myself, at the time, I couldn’t imagine why I was in there.’’
The home had a culture of fighting, and a lack of monitoring from the staff.
‘‘There were beatings in places where you couldn’t get away from… I was certainly petrified.’’
PM said there were some positive things, including some book learning and carving workshops.
But one staff member would come into his cell and ‘‘knock him around’’, which he did to the other kids, too.
‘‘I can’t remember why, but he was pretty angry, I remember being on my back on my bed being knocked about and being yelled at or screamed at.’’
He also recalled incidents of sexual abuse and exposure occurring in the changing rooms at the Les Mills Gym – perpetrated by both male and female boys’ home staff.
‘‘We used to go and sit in the spa and kids were taken back into the changing rooms. I’m not quite sure what was happening… but I can’t see it being very good.’’
PM went on to experience more abuse at Weymouth Boys’ Home and Whakapakari on Great Barrier Island, where he was beaten and raped.
A total of 16 survivors are sharing their testimony from state run institutions around New Zealand at the royal commission until May 11.