Name Mr SK
Hometown Te Whanganui-ā-Tara Wellington
Age when entered care 9 years old
Year of birth 1968
Time in care 1978–1983
Type of care facility Kohitere Boys’ Training Centre – Epuni Boys’ Home in Te Awa Karangi ki Tai Lower Hutt, Hamilton Boys’ Home, Hokio Beach School near Taitoko Levin, Kohitere Training Centre in Taitoko Levin; family homes – Carterton Family Home in the Wairarapa, Rexwood Street Family Home in Carterton, Waimarino Family Home; borstal – Waikeria Borstal near Te Awamutu.
Ethnicity Māori – Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Maniapoto
Whānau background Mr SK is the third eldest of six children, who he generally does not have any contact with.
Currently Mr SK is in Rimutaka Prison. The sister he was closest to has passed away.

“I don’t see men and women – I see keys and uniforms”

All I ever knew was abuse. 

My mum and dad both abused me. I remember my mother telling me that when I was a baby, she made me eat faeces once because I kept “shitting my nappies”. I remember being belted with a jug cord or the buckle end of a belt, being chained to the leg of a dining room table and forced to eat from a dog dish while the rest of the family ate at the table and fed me their scraps, and my parents burning the skin in between my fingers with cigarettes as punishment. 

We got one meal a day – dinner. Sometimes, if I’d been naughty, I didn’t get to eat at all – I was bashed and put in the shed. One day I broke into the cupboards in the kitchen and pulled out a jar of golden syrup so that my siblings and I could eat. Most of the time I was made to starve. I stole food from the neighbours – I wasn’t a good thief; I was just trying to survive. I relied on my instinct and wit to feed myself and my siblings the best I could. 

I started lighting fires when I was 8 years old. I was practising to burn our house down. I almost did, once, but a neighbour put it out. I got a hiding from both my parents, and they threw me into the shed. I still loved my parents, though – it’s a paradox I will never understand. 

A social welfare information sheet from February 1970 stated that my mother had been ill-treating us for some time. It’s not clear who provided this information, but the document stated that our neighbours, on the whole, weren’t anxious to do anything about our ill-treatment, but my mother had threatened to kill one woman who had called the police about it. We had a visit from a social worker soon after. 

I found out later that I was admitted to hospital as a baby under the age of 2 years, and that might be how I came to the notice of a social worker at the hospital. By 1976, we had a social worker visiting us every week. They became involved with my family because of problems I was having at school, related to theft. My records show my parents asked for help from the Youth Aid Service because they were having problems with me. I was committing petty thefts and setting fires in an abandoned building. I remember lighting the fires – I was practising to burn our house down. 

In December 1976 I appeared in front of the Porirua Children’s Board, though the reason isn’t clear from my records. They referred me to Social Welfare for follow-up, and my family was placed on preventive supervision until July 1977. 

My mother left us, and my father told us someone was coming to take us on holiday. A social worker took us away. I bounced around a few places, then I was nearly 10 years old when I was placed temporarily in Epuni Boys’ Home. 

At Epuni I was put into secure. I was stripped and put in the shower, then had some type of kerosene substance put in my hair. Then I was painted with some white stuff and handed a grey uniform. The cell had a mattress, a blanket and pillow, a basin and toilet, and the window up high had bars on it. I remember being pretty traumatised. I asked for my mum and dad and was told they were dead. I cried myself to sleep. 

I was in and out of family homes and boys’ homes, back and forth. On one admission to Epuni they took my personal stuff off me and threw it in the rubbish bin in front of me, including a taonga tiki that had been my great-grandfather’s. That was extremely traumatising for me as the tiki meant everything to me. I’ve never gotten over it. 

Epuni had a culture of violence and the ‘kingpin’ system. There was a ‘no narking’ policy – narks got bashed by other boys, including having a blanket thrown over you and having the shit kicked out of you. I believe this treatment later turned me into the kingpin of my block in a maximum-security prison. It made me violent. I haven’t hurt anyone in over 12 years, but I hold onto the fear that I will become another murderer statistic if I don’t get the help I know I need. 

By this time in my life, I had been locked in a closet, shed, kennel and cell by people who were meant to be looking after me. I ran away a lot – I took flight to try to prevent it happening again. 

I was sent to Hokio Beach School when I was 12 and I stayed there for nearly two years. It was a nightmare. There was an initiation process – boys came in at night and kicked the shit out of you. ‘Stompings’ happened at night because there were fewer workers on. The stomping really hurt, as a lot of the boys wore steel-capped boots – old coal miners’ shoes. Once I had urine thrown on me from another cubicle while I was on the toilet.

The staff there were physically abusive too. I would run away, then get caught and brought back and put into secure. Then I would go into the penalty phase. I had to get up at 6am and do physical training for an hour or so. Then again at 8am. If I collapsed, a staff member would punch me, or hit me with a set of keys, usually on the head or legs. While I was doing PT, they would tell me my parents were dead, or that they didn’t want me. They were trying to break me. 

I was sexually abused twice at Hokio, by another boy. Once, I tried to complain about this, and the staff member told me to fuck off. I ran away, was caught, and strapped. After running away another time, a staff member made me line up against the wall and bend over. Over 30 other boys were lined up and had to kick my arse. One kick was bad enough – imagine being kicked more than 30 times. I lost control of my faculties and began smashing my head into the wall. I said to the staff member, “Stop or I will kill you”, and he locked me into a cell where I cried myself to sleep. 

The staff at Hokio were just lazy. I struggled to understand why they were even there, as they were the perfect role models for how not to be. 

By the time I turned 14, I had at least 18 charges pending against me. A social worker’s report said my past made sad reading and my future prospects remained bleak. From there, I was sent to Kohitere Training Centre, where there was more physical and sexual abuse waiting for me. Kohitere was just a holding pen for prison – the place was uncontrollable at times. It lacked security, monitoring, supervision and any sort of therapy. I spent a total of 320 days in secure over a 563-day period at Kohitere. 

I had my first taste of prison aged 14 at Waikeria. I preferred it there because of the small luxuries we got in prison, like my own soap and a bed with blankets. I was treated better by some of the prison officers than I’d ever seen or heard in a boys’ home. The prison guards said things to me like, “C’mon kid”, “Let’s go, son”, “Get up, young fella” and “How are you?”. 

I was discharged from being a State ward at 15 years old. I think they just wanted to get rid of me. I’ve been in jail ever since – the longest I’ve been out is for about five weeks. My life in care and since leaving care has been the same – crime, violence, broken relationships but with me in prison lots. I know nothing else. 

I do not see men and women, I only see keys and uniforms. I don’t trust anyone; people need to earn it first. 

I was institutionalised, and with an institution comes culture. It is just a vicious cycle, and kids wind up in jail. The culture is cannibalistic; it takes you in its mouth, chews you up, swallows you, and shits you out. 

I suffer from low self-esteem, depression and anxiety. I have problems sleeping and I suffer from flashbacks. These are triggered by names or circumstances that remind me of what happened to me. 

I have many secrets, but my best-kept secret is this: for more than 20 years I have been crying out for help. However, I have been told many times to shut up and do my time, that I’m shit, I’m beyond help, or not worth it. The State has given me the label of ‘extremely dangerous’ and I have taken that label and hid behind it. That label has kept me safe and helped me to survive. 

I know how to look after myself, and the little boy in me, better than anyone else. The boy hides deep within the man, but if anyone chose to listen carefully, they would hear a little boy grieving the loss of what should have been but never was. I had the right to be loved, cared for, protected and nurtured. I had the right to be clothed, educated, to be a child, and to play. Instead, I was exposed to cruelty, torture, murder, deceit, lies and every domestic and social ill under the sun. This little boy – the one that I keep safe – laughs at whoever thinks he is a dangerous man. 

I’ll never forget the many who, along my journey in State care, did care. Particularly the detective who, had he not done his bit to remove me from a violent father and environment as a child, I have no doubt I would have only been a death certificate today. 

Hokio and Kohitere created gashes. It has been very taxing for me to tell my story, however after a lot of tears, heartache and pain I have finally fully recorded it all. I ask one thing: that my story is respected. It is my pain and it’s precious. My time in State care has never worn off and there has never been closure. The Hokio and Kohitere wounds are still open.

I hope there will be an outcome that brings transformational change for us who lived it, so the ‘institutional beasts’ that were the boys’ and girls’ homes of the past will never rise or be resurrected ever again.[423]

Footnotes