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Police reviewing additional adult sexual assault and child protection investigations
Police are reviewing more adult sexual assault and child protection investigations, RNZ can reveal. They are separate to the more than 50 cases of child protection complaints and adult sexual assaults re-opened after concerns were raised in May about Detective…
Abuse in Care survivor Frances Ruwhiu: ‘I thought I was getting a family; instead it was a mental institution’
Nearly two years after Whanaketia, the Royal Commission’s final report into Abuse in Care, Ruwhiu says survivors are still waiting for meaningful change, redress and recognition beyond Lake Alice. Nearly two years after the release of Whanaketia, the landmark Royal…
Lake Alice survivor forced to live in public car park after benefit wrongly cancelled
A survivor of torture at the notorious Lake Alice child and adolescent unit was forced to live in his house bus in a public car park after his accommodation supplement was wrongly cancelled. This meant Paul Zentveld, who has a…
‘Kick in the guts’: The human cost of reopening 54 child abuse and sexual assault investigations
Police files were supposed to pass through layers of checks and balances. Now 54 sexual assault and child abuse cases are being investigated again, leaving victims to trust the system a second time, while police face questions about why their…
A Prime Minister once hailed it as a rare success. So why has this charity closed?
Former Prime Minister Bill English once hailed a charity as a rare success in reducing youth reoffending in South Auckland. That charity, Genesis Youth Trust, has now closed after failing to secure more Government funding. A young Papakura woman had…
Police launch rapid review of 1,000 sexual assault, child abuse cases managed by one senior officer
Police have reopened 54 adult sexual assault and child abuse investigations after concerns about one senior officer triggered a review of close to 1,000 files. The long-serving senior officer now faces an employment process. Following questions from Stuff, police have…
How one woman’s eight-year fight raises questions about ACC’s ‘abhorrent’ new approach to weekly compensation
Eight years after she first sought help, Kristy Wilson has finally won weekly compensation for the childhood sexual abuse she suffered. But her case has highlighted a disputed new ACC approach that denies some survivors the payment – because ACC…
What is going on at Starship’s child protection unit?
For decades, a small group of specialists at Starship Hospital’s child protection unit have played a central role in some of NZ’s most serious physical child abuse cases. Their opinions trigger police investigations, child removals, criminal prosecutions and prison sentences.…
Like being ‘stabbed in the back’: abuse survivors left without trials after Christian Brothers’ unprecedented legal tactic
An abuse survivor feels as if he has been stabbed with a “sharp, long, bladed knife to the back” after his trial was aborted at the 11th hour due to an unprecedented legal tactic by the Christian Brothers. Last week,…
‘I’ve lost my whole life’: Survivors speak one year on from changes to redress
Twisted and raised scars run across the top of Alan Nixon’s hands like topographical maps of the abuse in his past. The marks are the physical reminders of what the Brothers of St John of God did to him as…
Deep job cuts loom for family and sexual violence agency: What has it actually achieved?
It was a bad headline for the Government: deep job cuts in the family and sexual violence sector. But what will the cuts actually do, and has the prevention taskforce made any difference? Isaac Davison reports Ten years ago, the…
The $24m ‘illusion’ of programmes to stop family violence
A landmark new body of research suggests New Zealand may have spent decades measuring the wrong thing – and asking the wrong people – about family violence. Paula Penfold investigates.
