The Road to Hell

State Violence against Children in Postwar New Zealand

Elizabeth Stanley

• Publisher: Auckland University Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781869408541
• eBook ISBN: 9781775588825
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Australian & Oceanian History
• Index: History

A harrowing account of state violence against children in New Zealand's postwar era.

From the 1950s to the 1980s, the New Zealand government took over 100,000 children from troubled homes and placed them in state care. Institutions like Epuni and Kingslea became sites of abuse, neglect, and social isolation. Elizabeth Stanley tells the stories of 105 individuals who experienced this system, drawing on extensive records and interviews.

Road to Hell exposes the brutal realities faced by these children: violence, punishment, and the long-term consequences of state-led harm. It's a powerful call for redress and change. This is for academics, social workers, and anyone seeking to understand the dark side of New Zealand's social history.

• Understand the systemic failures of the child welfare system.
• Recognize the long-term impact of institutional abuse.
• Advocate for change and prevent future harm.

CHAPTER ONE

Childhood Stories

THE VAST MAJORITY (N=91) of the 105 contributors in this study were removed from families who had problems. For some, family life was intensely abusive. Social workers observed children with bruises or broken limbs, or found them to be victims of sexual violence by relatives, whānau or family friends. Other children were neglected, due to family breakdown or parental struggles with poverty, mental health, or heavy alcohol and drug use. For almost a third of contributors (n=33), these stressful experiences resulted in offending behaviours (such as theft, property offences or, very rarely, violence offences) that brought their own lives under official scrutiny. A further fourteen, who had no previous contact with care and protection services, had started to offend.¹ Another 30 children were deemed delinquent, on account of their truancy, running away or other misdemeanours, while the rest (n=28) avoided personal inspection despite their difficult circumstances. All of them were placed into institutions.

This chapter considers the early childhood stories of the contributors to this book. It illustrates their paths into social welfare care. Removals were absolutely necessary for children who lived in brutal or neglectful families. Some children sought assistance from authorities, to help them stop the violence in their homes, and were initially relieved when social workers came to collect them. In other circumstances, interventions were more contentious. Some children and their families contended with structural victimisation, suffering economic hardship, social marginalisation or discrimination that placed significant strain on home lives. In place of state support or social assistance for their families, these children found themselves subject to close scrutiny and removal, especially if they had demonstrated a move to delinquency. These children were seen as trouble in the making, and state authorities believed that their development would be better served under social welfare control.

Violence and Neglect

It is often said that New Zealand has one of the worst records of family violence in the developed world. Family violence accounts for a significant proportion of violent attacks, with the New Zealand Police recently indicating that over half of all reported violent crime and almost half of all murders are family violence incidents.² The Christchurch Health and Development Study has tracked 1265 people born in 1977 and recorded that, during childhood, 40% witnessed at least one act of violence by a parent. Along with similar research conducted in Dunedin, this study also found that 4–6% reported high levels of regular or severe physical punishment and abuse from family members.³ Today, reports of violence against children to Child, Youth and Family (CYF) and the police remain high.⁴

Such facts continue to be a source of national shame and numerous reports, commissions and strategies have emerged to further understand and deal with the problem. A lot of recent literature has confirmed that family violence is differentially experienced across populations. That is, while it affects all demographics in New Zealand, it is exacerbated by certain factors that increase stress within families such as socio-economic disadvantage, cultural marginalisation, unemployment, living in rented or overcrowded accommodation, or living in deprived areas where services and opportunities are limited. When dovetailed with individual, family, relationship, community and societal factors – including low education, partner conflict, problematic drug or alcohol use, or the cultural acceptability of violence – these conditions increase the possibility of violence. They also determine whose violence is scrutinised, recorded or subject to intervention.⁵

The majority of people in this book have directly experienced some of the violence that occurs behind the walls of New Zealand’s homes. The Department compiled notes about the living conditions of these children, and regularly highlighted brutal treatment and neglect. Child Welfare officers charted burns, cuts, scars, claw marks, long-term bruising, cigarette-butt imprints and bone breakages. Such violence was linked to other discoveries: that children had been found hiding in holes, or were chained up like dogs outside, or that they were grossly neglected, or that they had intensely high pain thresholds and did not cry when their bones were broken. Some children lived in dire conditions, were sparsely clad and frequently starving. Their homes were described as ‘dirty’, ‘cold’, ‘bare’, ‘unappealing’ or with ‘a deserted, decayed atmosphere’.⁶ They noted difficult, abusive or neglectful family conditions for 91 (87%) of the 105 children in this study.

Several contributors compared their early childhood environment to the 1994 film Once Were Warriors, which illustrated a family struggling with the violent outbursts of an often drunk father, Jake ‘the Muss’ Heke:

There was a lot of violence and drinking involved and it was a pretty rough childhood, a bit like Jake the Muss . . . I remember waking up to a beating when I was in bed and not knowing what I was being beat up for (David).

Similarly, Arthur said that his parents had parties just about every week and it was always violence. For him, home life was uncertain and terrifying. These experiences are shared by many others, including John. After being taken to an orphanage at birth, John was eventually placed with his father. He described a number of violent incidents involving his dad, including one where he had been caught playing with matches. At the time, John was three:

So, he put my hand on the table and got a box of matches and lit every match. And each time he lit it, he’d stub it out on my hand and after about the third one I blacked out apparently.

He still has the scars. Around the same time, after being found eating lollies, he was thrown across the room by his father. The intensity was such that he ended up, as the police files note, being embedded in the foetal position in the wall. He recalled if it hadn’t had been an internal wall, I would have broken my neck. After this event, his auntie rang social welfare and asked for him to be removed from home.

Some victims found themselves singled out for violence. For instance, Ed’s parents did not want him. Records show that as a toddler he was locked in a room, with boards nailed over the windows. His parents removed the door handle so he could not escape. He lived a life of solitude where the room became his entire world:

I was stuck in that room for a long, long time so I remember even the stains on the walls. I remember one of the stains looked like a witch on a broomstick.

His situation was discovered by a local teacher who remarked that Ed ‘is most pathetic . . . he appears to be completely rejected by everybody, and actively rejected by his mother’. A month off his fifth birthday, he still wore nappies and could not speak properly. Social welfare temporarily removed him from home. A year later, he was returned to his parents and Ed was routinely used by his relatives, and their associates, for domestic services and sexual abuse:

It was over and over, it wasn’t just one night, it was many drunken nights, you know the smell of alcohol and stuff like that. I was often beaten . . . I got so used to the beatings that I never used to cry any more . . . I hid under the cot, and every time I knew they were coming I’d have to come out and just be prepared for anything.

After many years of abuse, Child Welfare reports indicated that Ed was not attending school, was emotionally upset, that he and his siblings lacked even the most basic necessities of food and clothing. Living in a barely furnished house, the children fended for themselves. After stealing a watch and then a bicycle, he was placed, at twelve years old, into Wesleydale.⁷

Contributors detailed how they were repeatedly victimised within their family homes and how they struggled to cope. They became depressed, and they lived in constant dread of what would happen next. For some, like Koura-Kino, who suffered violence at the hands of his father, and witnessed attacks on his mother, it was just too much:

It’s sometimes hard for me to talk about it. I grew up expecting him to be violent to me all the time . . . this violence of course put me into a state of fear and I can tell you that fear is very terrible to grow up with . . . I still have terrible memories about seeing what my mum used to go through. I adored my mum.

In early 1962, when Koura-Kino was eleven, Child Welfare noted that he was in need of care and protection. Over the following 20 months, his behaviour deteriorated and he was removed to Melville.

Some children had begun to accept violence and neglect as a normal feature of life. They tried to keep routines going and stay out of trouble in the midst of parental disregard. For instance, Auks, who was one of fourteen children, remarked:

When I was young, the majority of the time they were too busy drinking alcohol and having parties and that. So, you’d wake up in the morning and you know your parents should be there to give you breakfast and get you ready for school. But they always used to sleep in so we had to fend for ourselves, really, at a very young age.

Auks had an older sister who managed to organise her siblings but she struggled to hold it together. When Auks was twelve, the family was placed under supervision. This was soon followed by his removal, first to a family home and then to Epuni.

Kevin experienced a similar environment of parental parties and routine neglect:

The parents partied too much you know, and that’s where all our money was going. We were more or less brought up on flour and water, like a porridge, and bread . . . And that’s how we ate. It was just normal.

Kevin began to sniff solvents and steal. At age ten, he and two friends broke into Rongotai Primary School and stole ten ice blocks. The DSW (with no hint of humour) registered that ‘nil property had been recovered’. Highlighting Kevin’s return of Million Dollar Man stickers, previously stolen from a local dairy, officials concluded that ‘it was the home situation more than the lad himself which contributed to his offending’. Nonetheless, Kevin was charged with burglary and fined $8.⁸ Two years later, Kevin asked authorities for a more secure life within state care.

While many victims tried to make the best of their situation, others sought to stop family violence by alerting authorities to conditions at home. They told relatives, teachers, neighbours and police officers about what was happening. This sometimes brought change, however, it could worsen their situation. For example, Moana was assaulted by his foster parents. He tried to tell Child Welfare officers about his victimisation, and he would show them the marks on his body. Their response:

. . . the Child Welfare would just take me back. I’d get home, and they’d be ruffling my hair and saying, ‘Ah, he’s got a big imagination’, and things like that . . . and once they’d gone, it’d be like ‘What you doing, telling a Pākehā?’ . . . woo woo woo.

At ten years old, after running away and taking a bike, he was taken to Epuni.

Similarly, Grant found that his attempts to bring about official intervention made things worse for him:

I remember one time I jumped out of the window and ran next door. I begged them to call the police because all I could hear was screaming . . . Mum had already done a runner, she used to have a sleeping bag hidden under the house in a plastic bag to keep it dry because it was regular . . . And the cop came and says, ‘What’s going on?’ . . . and the bugger told Dad that I had notified the neighbours and demanded they call the police. Anyway as soon as the cop left Dad gave me a few whacks and threw me out. I was eight or nine at the time. It was really, really dark, and I just wandered everywhere calling out for Mum. I didn’t find her . . . My grandparents were living a couple of miles away . . . I walked there and sneaked in their washroom.

At thirteen, Grant was removed from home and placed in Owairaka. In Grant’s case, as for many others, the DSW had taken a long supervisory interest in family life. Certain families, particularly Māori and Pasifika families, were subject to increased scrutiny, and a child’s delinquency was often detected because their families were already under suspicion or supervision.⁹ However, other contributors noted that their home lives looked, from the outside, relatively normal as parents or guardians could be well regarded in the community and they lived in nice material environments. As John put it, On the surface it all looked lovely. But these homes also featured high levels of repression.

For example, after his mother’s death in England, Ernest and his two brothers lived with his father and his new wife in a fairly well-off, nice, flash home. Ernest described his home life:

We all had restrictions, we weren’t allowed friends. We had to be home by a certain time . . . if we got home a minute late, we’d get a hiding for it. We’d spend three or four hours just trying to polish a pair of shoes. For any small thing she’d give us a hiding. We had to stand up in the kitchen to eat our meals . . . wind, rain, hail or snow we were gardening. Woe betide if you missed one little weed . . . We were hungry, battered . . . once I had fingers so swollen I couldn’t write for a week. She used to put our fingers on the table and bash them with a cane . . . for just the slightest thing . . . Dad would sit there and watch. He did nothing.

Often hungry, Ernest turned to stealing food, through open doors or windows of nearby properties. The police caught him and his brothers, and we got a good dressing down but they also warned his parents not to lay hands on them again. Eventually, Ernest was removed to Owairaka for his care and protection, with neighbours and his headmaster testifying in court about his treatment.

Lee and his three brothers lived with a long-term foster parent who also gave the appearance, for many years, of providing a supportive home environment. In this home, Lee faced sexual abuse over a number of years from an ‘uncle’ and he was also regularly beaten:

It was full force by an adult by whatever weapon that was handy, it could be a stick, jug cord, piece of wood, pair of pliers, just anything really . . . that abuse was every day for the four of us and some nights I used to just go to sleep looking at the wall. I didn’t really want to face the world you know and that lasted for years.

As in Ernest’s household, Lee and his brothers were used as housekeepers, gardening, mowing the lawns, cutting the hedges, or scrubbing the insides of the house. The children were primed for social worker visits and were told what to say but, nonetheless, a social worker remarked that he and his brothers had malnutrition and a ‘dull look in their eyes’.¹⁰ After a well-intentioned but disastrous removal back to his parents – in which the four boys were hurriedly returned, with no transitory arrangements for the boys to reacquaint themselves with a family that now also included two unknown, younger brothers – Lee experienced a number of short placements before being taken to Owairaka.

In summary, for many children in this study, family life was uncertain, chaotic an...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chapter One Childhood Stories
• Chapter Two Rise of the State
• Chapter Three Removal and the Road to Hell
• Chapter Four Institutional Cultures
• Chapter Five Daily Life
• Chapter Six Violent Victimisation
• Chapter Seven Trouble and Survival
• Chapter Eight Controls and Punishments
• Chapter Nine Escalating Problems
• Chapter Ten Emotional Fallout and Repair
• Chapter Eleven Dealing with the Past
• Chapter Twelve What Next?
• Appendix One Data on Contributors
• Appendix Two Primary Methods
• Appendix Three The Institutions
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Copyright Page