Name Mr PM
Hometown Waihi Beach
Year of birth 1974
Type of care facility Foster homes; boys’ homes – Hamilton Boys’ Home in Kirikiriroa Hamilton, Weymouth Boys’ Home in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland; Te Whakapakari Youth Programme on Aotea Great Barrier Island; police station cells.
Ethnicity Pākehā
Whānau background Mr PM lived with his mother until she died when he was 10 years old. He then lived with his father, stepmother and two stepsisters.
Currently Mr PM is a truck driver, although he is currently unemployed. He has two children.

“I knew I had no one to turn to” 

My mother died when I was about 10 years old and my world turned upside down.

I was good at school and sports but began to hang out with the wrong people and became involved in burglaries. I didn’t have a mother and father and proper family. I had a stepmother and stepsisters that didn’t want me.

I was considered uncontrollable by age 12 and was taken into State care. The police brought me home several times. The youngest age that I recall being held in a police cell was at around 14 years of age. On one occasion, my parents told the police not to bring me home. I had become a nuisance to them and they wanted me to go somewhere else.

I was in and out of foster care and boys’ homes, then I was sent to Whakapakari. I was 15 years old.

At first, I thought it was wonderful. I went snorkelling, diving and fishing, and they kind of nurtured us a little bit to start with. There were only a handful of white boys and we stuck together. There were lots of boys there, some the same age as me and some a lot older.

But things quickly changed. The first alarm bells for me were hearing children screaming at night.

The supervisor carried a gun and would wave it around when giving us direction. He’d beat us and get kids to beat each other. He slept in the tents with us, and I noticed him moving around the beds at night and doing things to the boys. I saw him doing it every night, although it never happened to me.

Once, he took me and two other boys into a tent. There were two older boys and he told us to take off our clothes and told the older boys to fuck us. I freaked out and ran, but he caught me and beat me. Back at the tent I heard some horrible noises. The younger boys had been beaten and raped. One of them was literally holding his arse, he was in severe pain. The other boy was speechless, holding his arse and he could barely walk.

Another time, some of us were taken up the hill and the older kids and supervisor tried to beat us up and rape us. It was the same older boys involved again. We got a huge beating. The supervisor told us to get our clothes off but because I had been in a similar sort of situation, I knew what was going to happen so I ran away into the shed back at camp.

It was then that I knew l had no one to turn to. I was shit scared.

On another occasion, the supervisor took us down to the creek to a flat grassy section and made us dig our own graves. He made us get in and lay face down. We weren’t allowed to look, and he threatened to shoot us. He started shooting into the air and we were screaming, begging for our lives and freaking out. It was horrifying. If we tried to get out, he’d kick us back in. I thought this was going to be the end of my life, and I didn’t know what we’d done to deserve that treatment.

There were many beatings while at Whakapakari, both by other boys and by the supervisor. Sometimes he would line us up and beat us. I recall a group named the ‘Flying Squad,’ who were a group of kids who used to beat people up. The supervisor used to orchestrate all the beatings and rapes. He created a sick culture at Whakapakari, like a fight and rape club. I still wonder where he learned to be the way he was.

The day before I left Whakapakari, the supervisor took me and another boy to his camper. If I’d known what was going to happen, I would never have gone in there. He followed us in with his gun and said, “Get on the fucking bed”. He put the gun on the counter and raped us both. It was too much pain for me to take and I started squealing and freaking out and he smashed my head down into the fucking pillow. And I just shut down in shock. We had to stay there all night. What happened in that cabin was putrid.

Later, I went back to one of the boys’ homes and I was put into secure and beaten again. But nothing was ever as bad as Whakapakari. I pretty much didn’t fear anything after that place.

For many years, I felt lots of shame and couldn’t tell anyone about what had happened to me. I just walked around trying to hide what had happened.

In 2019, I heard about the claims process for those who had been placed in care as children.

When I contacted MSD, I asked about compensation. My case manager said I was up to no good and trying to scam them. I struggled to get anyone to answer my calls. The way I see it, they invaded my life and ruined it and when I asked for help they sent me away.

I had to stop driving trucks because of my Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. I contacted ACC to try and get paid leave from work, but they won’t help me. They think I’m a scammer too.

I have absolutely no faith in ACC and MSD. They don’t know me, but they question me, trying to catch me out to be a liar. The system got me raped. The system got me where I am now. And when I do speak up, they all run for the woods.

Whakapakari taught me that bad things can come with smiles. Just because someone is smiling at you doesn’t mean they’re nice.[38]

Footnotes