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Mr Taito gave evidence about his experience as a Samoan New Zealander being removed from his family as a child following intervention by the State. He was made a state ward and sent to Owairaka Boys’ Home in the 1970s and his account of abuse and neglect in care set him up on a pathway to becoming a fully patched gang member at the age of 17. Mr Taito spent many years in the gang and criminal lifestyle before leaving that behind to embark on study in 2009. He now holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Auckland with a double major in Sociology and Māori. Mr Taito’s evidence explored some of the broader experience of Pacific communities in New Zealand in the 1970s and 1980s, and he also drawed on his own experience to explain the long-lasting impacts of his time in care as a ward of the state.