Abuse survivors demand accountability for years of New Zealand government cover-up

New Zealand’s National Party-led coalition government is desperate to minimize the fallout from the explosive findings of the Royal Commission into Care Abuse.

People arrive in Parliament in Wellington, New Zealand, on Wednesday, July 24, 2024, to unveil a sweeping independent inquiry into the abuse of children and vulnerable adults in care over five decades, according to a scintillating final report. . (AP Photo/Charlotte Graham-McLay)

In August, the long-running investigation published its final 3,000-page report, documenting in horrifying detail the physical, psychological and sexual abuse suffered by generations of children, young people and mental health patients. The 3,000-page report concluded that between 1950 and 2019, about 256,000 people were abused and neglected – about a third of the total number of people placed in government or religious institutions.

The commissioners found that government and religious leaders “knew or should have known about the abuses and neglect that were occurring.” Not only have they failed in their duty to ensure the safety of the people in their care, but they have also failed to bring abusers to justice.”

They also wrote: “Political and public figures have spent time, energy and taxpayer resources to hide, cover up and then legally fight the survivors to protect potential perceived costs to the Crown and their own reputations.”

On November 12, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and opposition Labor Party leader Chris Hipkins plan to jointly issue a national apology to survivors. The Government says it will also reveal details of its response to the Royal Commission report, which included recommendations on redress, independent oversight of care facilities and the reopening of police investigations into specific allegations.

The apology is intended to divert public attention from the role played by numerous current and former government ministers, senior civil servants, church leaders and senior police officers in the decades-long cover-up.

On October 23, Attorney General Judith Collins rejected survivors’ calls for the resignation of Solicitor General Una Jagose, the government’s chief legal counsel. Collins told Newsroom that she trusted Iagosa, although the latter “acknowledged that the way Crown Law had handled trials over the years was not necessarily victim-centred.”

Yagose joined Crown Law Firm in 2002. In 2015, she briefly served as head of the Government Communications Security Bureau, the country’s spy agency, before being appointed to her current position in 2016.

Leonie McEnroe, who was abused at Lake Alice Mental Hospital in the 1970s, has spoken out Newsroom: “(Iagose) has made it very clear that with regard to all of her legal formalities and attacks on abused children – either in Lake Alice or in other situations – from a legal standpoint she has fought vigorously and aggressively for us to leave “

Jagose is mentioned repeatedly in the Royal Commission’s report as she was instrumental in defending the Crown against victim-blaming.

McEnroe and other Lake Alice patients were given electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) as punishment, which the Royal Commission found amounted to torture. She filed a civil lawsuit in the 1990s over her ordeal and Crown Law spent years fighting it through the courts.

Newsroom points out that “the Crown had overwhelming documentary evidence that the allegations of torture (against Dr. Selwyn Leakes of Lake Alice) were true, but repeatedly suppressed that evidence.” In 1999, then Health Minister Bill English publicly admitted that torture had occurred at Lake Alice. However, Leakes and other staff who abused more than 200 children and young people, including using electric shocks to the genitals and rape, were never brought to justice.

Detailed analysis of the cover-up Newsroom Reporter Aaron Smale explains that “it was the Crown that had the greatest amount of documentary evidence (about the crimes committed at Lake Alice). But if Leakes had been prosecuted in full, the Crown would have been legally and financially liable.” Extensive evidence pointing to Leakes’ guilt was kept secret and not disclosed to police.

In May 2000, Labor Prime Minister Helen Clark and Health Minister Annette King presented options to a cabinet committee for resolving the Lake Alice allegations. They preferred out-of-court settlements that limit liability and do not set a precedent.

Clarke and King also recommended that the Cabinet Office “seek advice from the Crown Act as to the likelihood of success of a technical defence” against alleged victims. The Prime Minister and the Health Minister expressed hope that by placing “the burden of proving their claims on the plaintiffs” who had extremely limited resources, “the Crown’s abdication of liability may be successful.”

Smale concludes that “victims of the state were effectively treated as legitimate enemies of the state. The victims of the state’s crimes were treated like criminals, while the real criminals walked free.”

In another case heard by the Royal Commission, a man identified as Earl White sued the Crown in 2007 for injuries suffered as a result of a sexual assault at a Hokio Beach school. Crown lawyers knew that perpetrator Michael Ansell, a school cook, had been convicted of sexually abusing other children at the school in the 1970s, but this information was not provided to White’s lawyer. One of the government lawyers involved in the case was Yagose.

Smale reports that in the lead-up to White’s trial, the Department of Social Development and Crown Law hired private investigators to “dig up dirt” on White – a fact that was only acknowledged in 2018. The Crown accused White of “abusing the process” and sought to discredit his claim that the abuse caused him significant harm.

High Court Judge Forrest Miller sided with the Crown: although he found White had been assaulted on at least 13 occasions, he said it was “embarrassing, not traumatic” and did not contribute to his serious mental illness and mental health problems. addiction. Thus, the Crown avoided liability. Miller claimed, without evidence, that White’s “difficulties” were caused by early childhood experiences and genetics. Jagose defended Miller’s extraordinary decision when White appealed to the Court of Appeal, which again ruled in favor of the Crown.

The Royal Commission report said there was a “culture of severe violence” at Hokyo Beach School, including “brutal corporal punishment, sometimes inflicted with weapons and on the genitals”. Additionally, peer-to-peer violence was encouraged, “sexual violence was endemic,” “racism and cultural violence became the norm,” and “solitary confinement was misused.”

Jagose also represented the Crown against Keith Whiffin, who in the 2000s brought a claim against the Department of Social Development for sexual abuse at the Epuni Boys’ Home in the 1970s. Crown Law withheld information from Wiffin’s lawyer Sonia Cooper, including the fact that perpetrator Alan Wright-Moncrief had been convicted of sexually abusing other children.

In her evidence to the Royal Commission, Jagose accepted that the information should have been disclosed. When asked why this did not happen, she replied: “I don’t know, I can’t answer. This is how it should have been.”

In September 2008, Crown Law wrote to Wiffin’s lawyer to dissuade him from pursuing the criminal case. Wiffin told the Royal Commission that he was led to believe that Crown Law was conducting its own investigation into the Wright-Moncrief case, but this was not the case.

Newsroom Smale notes that “the political and official cover-up highlighted by the Royal Commission had no direct consequences at all.” Several politicians, government officials, judges, lawyers and others involved in the investigation remain in powerful positions.

As the government and opposition parties prepare to issue a national apology, the abuse of youth continues. Last year, another 519 children were abused in government institutions. The vast majority of victims are from poor working class backgrounds, including large numbers of Maori.

The far-right coalition government recently reopened military “boot camps” for teenage offenders, despite a Royal Commission documenting bullying, extreme violence and rape in similar programs.

The Royal Commission has revealed the brutal reality of capitalism in New Zealand. As the global economic crisis intensifies, business elites view hundreds of thousands of young people as surplus to their needs. They are condemned to a life of poverty, unemployment, imprisonment, or conscripted into the army to fight imperialist wars abroad.

For this reason, the ongoing struggle for justice for victims of state abuse must be linked to the political struggle for socialism; that is, for a society that puts an end to all forms of social inequality, exploitation and militarism.

Abuse survivors demand accountability for years of New Zealand government cover-up

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