Marylands School. Photo: Supplied / V C Browne & Son
Warning: This story contains details some readers might find distressing.
A human rights lawyer who represented dozens of survivors of abuse in state and faith-based care does not trust the state, even today, to prevent it from happening again.
But Sonja Cooper has hope people are "more vigilant" about potential abuse in care nowadays.
A new report detailing abuse at a Catholic school and a related community centre in Christchurch described the institutions as "hell on Earth".
The Royal Commission of Inquiry Into Abuse in Care outlined sexual, physical and spiritual violence at Marylands School and Hebron Trust, saying it was aware of no other institution where sexual abuse was so extreme.
Marylands was a residential school primarily for boys with learning disabilities. The school, run by the Brothers of St John of God from 1955, was taken over in 1984 by the Ministry of Education. By then, claims of abuse were already coming in, the report said, but were ignored.
The Hebron Trust, also run by the Brothers of St John of God, was described by the inquiry as "a residential programme in Christchurch from 1986 to 1993 for youth in need of safety, shelter and support, including 'street kids'".
"What this report shows is that for four decades, children were absolutely silenced" - lawyer Sonja Cooper
Cooper represented more than 30 of the survivors of the two institutions. She told Morning Report on Thursday she was "really happy" with the report, Stolen Lives, Marked Souls, which found neither the state, the Brothers nor the Catholic Church had been held accountable for the harm. A number of individuals have been convicted of a range of historic crimes, both in New Zealand and in Australia.
"They've taken a lot of the stories from the survivors and those who have represented the survivors. I think it's a powerful report," Cooper said.
"Again, they're not pulling any punches and they're telling it like it is. One of the things that I'm really gratified about is, it's not just looking at the Brothers of St John of God, but it's looking at the wider Catholic Church and the responsibility there, but it's also having a look at the state's responsibility - and that's obviously the Department of Social Welfare as it was, the police, and then I think [the Ministry of] Education and others who really turned a blind eye to what they must have known was going on."
She said children sent to Marylands often came from "families of abuse", and were isolated far from home. Others were sent there if they had trouble fitting in at state schools, whether their families were Catholic or not. Cooper said families often thought they were "sending them to a better place".
"Then of course, we have Hebron Trust, and that cohort was the street kids, the homeless, the displaced. So they were again extremely vulnerable children, and the brother who ran that place would go around Christchurch and pick up kids who were sniffing, would go to the parks and would go to the centre of Christchurch, find the street kids, give them money, give them glue and then take them back.
"They had a couple of places and, and would horrifically abuse them. I mean, I think the Hebron ones in some ways are worse because I mean, we had stories of children as young as five who were sodomised by this brother, often taken by older siblings who knew what was gonna happen or relatives, to stop the abuse themselves. But also too because they were being given money, they were being given glue, they were, you know, they were being given alcohol."
The head of Hebron Trust was Bernard McGrath, whom the report described as a "serial rapist" and the scale of his abuse, "immense" - he was responsible for 28 percent of all the complaints about the Brothers.
Sonja Cooper. Photo: RNZ / Aaron Smale
"So I think from my perspective - and it is quoted in the report - for me this is the worst placement overall because we're talking about four decades of known abuse. This is the worst of all and I think the abuse, I agree with the royal commission - it is depraved, and the victims of that abuse are still horrifically suffering. I think particularly street kid cohorts - so the ones who were both placed there and often were doing community work there."
Asked what happened next to prevent this kind of abuse from ever happening again, Cooper said it was important that children - when they reported such horrific events - should be listened to and believed.
"I don't think the state's ever been able to prevent abuse and I don't think that they're doing a good job now. I think hopefully now people are more vigilant.
"I think what it means is that when children report abuse, you actually have to believe them because I think what this report shows is that for four decades, children were absolutely silenced.
"The state turned a blind eye, the Catholic Church turned a blind eye and the Brothers of St John of God hid it."
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