Here's on example(a long, sad story):
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/archive...11.6b3407.html
NR Column: Abused To Abuser
6 June 1998, 1:11 pm
Staff Reporter: Alastair Thompson
By Selwyn Manning, Editor of southern Auckland's investigative newspaper PULSE OF COUNTIES MANUKAU - circulation 25,000 and distributed with Counties Manukau Sports Weekly.
We create our own monsters - that's what the informed said after south Auckland serial rapist Joseph Thompson admitted his brutal and terrifying rapes against girls and women.
Thompson was of course an abused child who became a widely feared abuser. He stalked the greater Auckland suburbs for years. He left a cloud of sorrow after him.
He is not alone.
Today in this column we chronicle a Counties Manukau boy's path from abused to abuser.
We delve into leaked documents which unearth a Governmental bureaucracy which appears unresponsive to the urgent needs of children trapped in a cycle of sexual and physical abuse.
That bureaucracy - the Children Young Persons and their Families Service [CYPS] - was unable to free two young teenagers from their sorrowful lives. It was unable to avert what some say was inevitable - more sexual violence as the sad cycle of abuse continues on to gather its victims.
We will centre this investigation on two young children: Robert and Jane.
For legal reasons we cannot use the real names of the victims or their families. But what you read here happened. These youngsters are real people.
A high-powered investigation is underway into the life of a Counties Manukau teenager who has admitted raping a three year old girl. The little victim's parents, who were also foster parents to the boy, want to know why social welfare failed to warn them that the boy was likely to abuse other little children.
Children's Commissioner Roger McLay is investigating the complaints.
The foster parents say the Children Young Persons and their Families Service [CYPS] failed to provide them with background information about the boy's domination and cruel acts of power over other children. CYPS, they say, also failed to warn them of the danger he posed to their own daughter.
The boy had earlier been caught having sex with a 14 year old intellectually disabled girl.
Later his attention turned to younger children. The foster parents say CYPS should have warned them. They say the department didn't and their three year old daughter was raped.
The foster parents also allege CYPS had been warned by the rapist's parents of his sexualised behaviour, and that the boy had a history of abuse and powerplays over other children. Before he raped the foster parent's daughter, CYPS had been asked to move the boy out of the home into more suitable care. The requests went unheeded. The boy stayed.
The young rapist's father and step mother also have a complaint lodged with the Children's Commissioner. Roger McLay has met with the rapist's father and step mother. Their complaint is that CYPS failed to react to their warnings. I have also met with the parents. They told me CYPS played a part in their son's crimes. CYPS had known that the boy himself had been raped as a child, physically abused, emotionally tormented, but did nothing to remove him from his sordid surroundings.
The boy's father said "We knew it would happen [that his son would sexually abuse other children]. We warned CYPS but nothing was done".
CYPS, reportedly, says the service had followed "appropriate procedures" at all stages of this "sad case".
But the Commissioner demands CYPS present a "full report" dealing with what knowledge the department had of Robert's "abusive behaviour and what steps were taken to warn the relieving caregivers and protect their children".
CYPS will not comment further until the commissioner's report is completed.
What is going on behind the scenes of this saga? What lies behind the making of a teenage monster? Today we chronicle this boy's path from abused to abuser. We delve into leaked documents which unearth a Governmental bureaucracy which appears unresponsive to the urgent needs of children trapped in a cycle of sexual and physical abuse.
His life can be a warning to us all.
Papakura east is dark and still tonight as I pull up to the curbside. I pierce the night to identify the family home where Robert spent some of the happier moments of his tortured life.
The home is like most others on the street. Frames to lives of hard working families who provide a lot on little.
Streetlights are out, it's hard to navigate the concrete path to the front door. I knock. A man opens the door, he's tall with thinning sandy hair. He smiles and says come in.
We sit at a kitchen table. The man checks me out with brief sharp glances. He doesn't want to offend but wants to know more about the guy who knows so much about him and his family.
His wife sits to my left. She lights the first of many cigarettes, exhales and fiddles with the packet.
We begin discussing the life of this man's beloved son.
Robert was born in Napier in 1981.
His mother and father were then living together but it wasn't long before cracks in the partnership forced separation.
Robert stayed with his mother his sister and his older half brother.
His birth father [we'll call him Bill] moved away from Napier. He had access rights to see Robert but visits were sporadic: "Those access visits frequently caused me concern with regard to the children's well-being. For instance during one access visit in 1984 I noticed bruises all over Robert's body whilst I was giving him a bath," Bill relates.
The man relives frustration: "I suspected then that things were not right for Robert. I put in a complaint to social welfare but they did nothing." The father told the Social Welfare Department, made a full statement, "however", he says "to my knowledge no action has ever been taken with regard to this complaint." That was the beginning to a long legacy of dissatisfaction.
Over the early years of Robert's life Bill was periodically denied access to visit him. His daughter lived there too. We've called her Jane.
Bill had concerns for Jane as well, she had become withdrawn, couldn't communicate with others, seemed in a world of her own.
Something more disturbing bugged Bill. But at the time he could put his finger on it.
His visits were sometimes allowed but were always made unwelcome by his ex-partner. Costly legal battles kept all parties broke.
Bill wanted custody but this was disallowed, he says, by the Courts and CYPS.
There were long periods where Bill's ex-partner blocked him from visiting.
During these years of the mid to late 1980s rotten cruel things were being done to Bill's kids. CYPS was involved but never got down to the nitty gritty.
By 1990 Bill and his second wife managed again to get access to the children. Robert was even allowed to visit their home during the holidays.
1990 was the year when Robert first met his new step mother. The two quickly built up a rapport. You see, this woman had been abused as a child and she saw something in the boy and his sister that they all had in common.
Bill says: "Her initial reaction was that both children had been abused and in her opinion the children had been abused emotionally, physically and sexually." His wife told him of her concerns during the drive home, after visiting the children. Bill didn't want to believe it, he feels guilty about that.
The children were always skinny. They had sunken eyes, wouldn't talk, and when served with a dinner would eat [with their hands] as if it was their last meal.
"It would not be an understatement thereafter to say that everytime we had the children for access we would make a further complaint to the then Department of Social Welfare, primarily concerning the children's behaviour and their social skills." Robert was aged 9 years [in 1990] but he still could not bathe himself, nor did he know how to use a knife and fork to feed himself with.
Three years rolled on.
By then Bill and his wife wanted action. The children were pre-adolescent and were displaying disturbing behaviour.
Especially Jane who to get attention would rub herself sexually all over adults. The couple approached a Napier based CYPS social worker.
At this meeting the official informed the father that his little daughter had been abused by a man, a friend of the birth mothers.
The abuse had occurred four year's previous, in 1989. No one had told Bill of the attack. No one had bothered to think, he says, that her father had a right to know.
"If I had known then I would have done everything in my power to get those two kids out of there. But no one told me. And the damage was done."
The social worker knew the man's name, as do the police, but no arrest has been made apparently because of insufficient evidence - that is even though Jane's medical condition confirmed she had been sexually abused.
Robert was also showing signs of torment but no investigation was ever made into what happened to him at night and in the moments when no one can see.
The man who allegedly abused the children was kicked out of the home in 1989 by the children's birth mother. After that, Robert and Jane's "half brother took over", that's what Robert told his father and step mother.
The abuse continued its cycle.
Robert was beaten up regularly. He was thrown against a powerpole so hard it broke his collarbone.
He had a clock's alarm jammed to his ear at full volume for one and a half hours. All the time he would scream. His half brother delighted in his torture.
Sexually, Robert was allegedly used, he was made to be submissive. He was intimidated and made to offer no resistance.
In 1993 Jane wanted to go and live with her father Bill. But her birth mother flatly refused. The mother battled with her lawyers. Bill fought back too.
In the end the birth mother did agree to allow Robert to live with his father. But Jane must stay behind, she insisted.
When Bill arrived to pick the boy up, Robert was in his room cutting up his clothes. The mother said he had a lot of bad and unusual behaviours.
The boy had been told that his father was taking him to punish him.
Robert was confused.
But more serious behaviour problems lurked. Robert had a habit of fouling, regularly defecating, in his pants.
Bill and his wife took the boy home in September 1993. But they didn't forget Jane.
Also in 1993 Bill and the stepmother visited Jane's school, spoke to the principal: "We were advised... as Jane had attended school one day with bruising to her face which, she told her teacher, was caused by [her mother] hitting her across the face with a belt." In January 1994, Jane arrived to visit Bill and the stepmother at their home.
"During that holiday she disclosed that she was being sexually abused by her half brother... She also said that when she told [her mother] about the abuse she, Jane, got a hiding." Meanwhile Robert had settled into his new found life at his father's home.
After about three or four months. Robert had found feelings. He had began to "cuddle up" to his step mother.
Bill says: "He had found what a true cuddle was without sinister motives attached." After Robert began cuddling he began calling his step mother Mum.
One day he came home from school with a red heart-shaped cushion that he had made for her. On it Robert had embroided the name "MUM".
"It was an amazing thing. That was the good side of Robert," she says.
But CYPS often insisted that Robert return to visit his birth mother.
This, Bill says, upset the boy.
"CYPS knew abuse had occurred in that home. Yet they insisted Robert visit there unsupervised.
"We asked him 'do you want to go there?' He definitely did not want to go to that house. So we kept him with us." Robert was so fearful of going back there, once when travelling south with his father they passed the Westshore Napier house. Robert was so terrified that he curled up on the floor while the vehicle was passing.
He didn't want to be seen. Robert was shaking. Too scared to show his face until he and his father were miles away.
Back home the boy's behaviour was still up and down: "Some days he was an ideal child. He would help me with chores, but then the next day he could be terrible," Bill says.
Robert would steal money, steal alcohol, empty the vodka bottle and fill it up with water. His father believed he had begun to "smoke dope".
"He would come home absolutely spaced out, you could see it in his eyes, he just wasn't there." "With younger kids he was very controlling." One day the family had children visiting. Robert was alone with a young boy. For "no reason" he began attacking the child. It was violent.
"It was a controlling thing," his father says. "You could see him looking at the kids in a certain way. He would look up and you could see him think 'I can dominate that child'."
Another incident left Bill wondering what was possessing his boy.
Robert had been playing with a young boy near a swimming pool. The little boy could not swim, yet Robert made the child jump in the deep end of the pool. When the boy could not swim and began to flounder Robert just stood there laughing.
The boy almost drowned. He is now nine years-of-age and only now does he have enough confidence to go near water.
At night Robert would toss and turn in his bed. Bill would be kept awake at night as the bed thudded on the floor.
"Robert would cry out in his sleep, he would swear abuse. By morning the bed would have moved across to the other side of the room," Bill says.
CYPS was counselling the boy.
One social worker harboured deep concerns: "... felt there was a good possibility that Robert may well commit suicide perhaps not right away but certainly if things did not go his own way or if he was put under a lot of pressure," the social worker noted.
In May 1994 Robert told his counsellor about the abuse. He said his half brother had been sexually abusing him. He also revealed that his birth mother and his half brother physically abused him.
When the boy left the counsellor he told his step mother "I did it, I told them all about it." She says he was so pleased with himself.
This revelation was confirmed in a letter to the Papakura Family Court in January 31 1996. A counsellor wrote: "Robert disclosed that he was the victim of physical and sexual abuse by his half brother ... while in his mother's care and physical abuse by his mother. Robert's sister Jane also disclosed sexual abuse by her half brother ... and is placed in a permanent foster home in Wellington."
Bill says Robert's behaviour was becoming more weird. He became controlling and very manipulative. Robert would also lie to get other children in trouble.
Robert lived with his father and stepmother for two years. "During that time I believe we tried everything we could think of to help Robert with his behavioural problem," Bill says.
There was no noticeable improvement, however. Robert continued to manipulate, to lie, to steal, continued to defecate in his underwear. He continued to hide the soiled clothes.
"We were at the end of our tether. We did not know how to deal with this boy," Bill says. "We were making no difference to his life, we were failing him and destroying ourselves at the same time." His father and stepmother tried to get Robert into Felix Donnelly's care programme. The programme is independent of CYPS and has a good reputation for turning around potential and actual offenders.
But CYPS workers, who were very much involved in the boy's life at this stage, discouraged this.
"Instead [CYPS] placed Robert in the family [foster] home at Pukekohe in May 1995.
"We voiced our displeasure and concern to CYPS that Robert should not be placed in a family home with other children... We believed that Robert may abuse the other children in the home."
"We tried to stick up for our rights as the boy's parents. But that did no good. I was even accused of abusing my own kids. That just destroyed me," Bill says.
The couple were fearful of what might happen: "We told CYPS of our concerns. We even went out and warned the caregivers that Robert should not be in the home. We told them he was likely to sexually abuse other children.
"We told CYPS that unless Robert's own sexual abuse was dealt with he would likely sexually offend," Bill says.
That Pukekohe foster home was under the eye of CYPS. The department's psychologists and social workers were in constant contact with Robert.
They advised for his care, they monitored his moods and behavioural trends.
But again, it appears, no one ever told Robert's relieving foster parents of what lurked in his mind, or, of his battered and sexually abused past.
There were warning signs developing.
Robert had been in the foster home since May 1995. But big changes were afoot. It appears during 1996 the boy could not cope.
A CYPS care and protection social worker notes in October 1996, "we do have some concerns for Robert who has been having some problems both at school and at the family home. His usual good behaviour at the home has been replaced by defiance and withdrawal and he has refused to see his counsellor." The social worker believed the boy was upset at hearing his foster parents were about to leave only to be "replaced" by another relieving couple.
It was destabilising. Robert was angry and incidents of glue sniffing and lying were a sign of worse things to come.
Indeed Robert's social worker was on October 1 1996 concerned enough to write to the Papakura Family Court judge.
She alerts the judge that Robert had again began to defecate in his pants, began lying and stealing. She then too noted the boy was disturbed because the foster parents were moving on.
However, she recommends: "That Robert remain in the family home at Pukekohe and continue to maintain communication with his family."
Two months passed.
Then came a shock for Bill and his wife. It came from CYPS as a simple two paragraph letter dated December 2 1996.
Bill says: "We were notified that Robert had been removed from the Pukekohe family home as two other children at the home had disclosed that Robert had been touching them in a sexual way..." The Papakura man's life was shattered.
The CYPS letter went on: "While Robert was away from the home, two of the other children in the home disclosed that Robert had been touching them in a sexual way... There has been a further disclosure that Robert has allegedly abused the 3 year-old daughter of the relief caregivers.
"Robert has been shifted from the home for the safety and protection of the younger children involved." The letter announced how the sexual attacks had been referred to the police and Youth Justice Services.
Robert's father was naturally devastated.
His son had become what he had always feared - a child abuser.
Robert has admitted in Court charges of rape. He's now locked up in Christchurch's centre for young sexual abusers.
This case raises disturbing facts and questions whether THE ONE Governmental organisation designed to safeguard our children has suffered a systematic breakdown. If it can no longer fulfil its purpose, then a complete and total overhaul must surely be undertaken. At the very least a full, independent public inquiry must be held.
If the Children's Commissioner's findings support this family's account of how a system contributed toward destroying the very lives it is supposed to protect, then it must surely go.
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
* The little girl Robert raped still has "behavioural problems". She sometimes gets frightened, she keeps to herself. The world is not as it should be for a pre-school girl. People who care for her have hope that she will fully recover.
* The two other children Robert sexually violated are trying to deal with their abuse. Ironically, they were under CYPS care and protection orders at the time of their abuse. Their lives will never be the same.
* Jane lives in Wellington in foster care. She too is still disturbed. Her father and step mother suspect she is schizophrenic. She is highly promiscuous. She will masturbate in public in front of anyone. She will sexually force herself upon people. Jane still finds it difficult to communicate with people, she talks to people who are not visible to others, she is not coping with everyday life.
* Robert is locked up at the Christchurch centre for young sexual abusers. There he is studying for school certificate. When he turns 17 he will most likely be moved to Rolleston or Waikeria Prisons. There are treatment centres at these two prisons set up for repeat sexual offenders.
* Robert and Jane's half brother still lives in Napier. The last time his Papakura relatives saw him was when they passed the Westshore house by bus. The half brother was masturbating in full view of those travelling along the main road to Napier.
* The birth mother still lives in Napier.
* Little is known of the where-abouts of the man who up to 1989 abused Jane and possibly Robert.
* Bill and his wife still live in Papakura. They don't get to race stock cars [their passionate hobby] very often these days because there is little money to go around. They are trying to get on with their lives. They are supported by friends, god children, and others who also have had, "trouble with the Children Young Persons and their Families Service".
Epilogue:
Half a packet of cigarettes, one cup of tea, and hours of pained memories pass. Bill and his beloved wife have so much they want to say.
They plan to keep abreast of their own lives. They too want to have fun, achievement, a wonderful life. They have a millstone around their necks and it shows. You can't help but feel a regard for these people.
Robert's stepmother asks who will look after Robert when he gets out of Mt Eden Prison: "These offences need not have happened had CYPS done their job. There will never be a happy ending, there can only be a lot of heartbreak...
"I am really annoyed with CYPS. I feel that they should be charged along with Robert as they had been told he was likely to be an abuser and yet did nothing, just sat on their hands...
"This whole system has failed not only Robert and his sister but our family as well. We don't know if Robert is still offending but my guess is that if he's not he's thinking about it... We've been battling this system for eight years and look where it has got us. We've spent $60,000 on lawyers. We cannot afford to pay the telephone bills. We have a son in prison for rape. And there are more child victims." Bill says: "I haven't given up on Robert yet. Not even now.
"I visited him when he was in Mt Eden Prison. He was scared, it was a shock to his system. The sad thing is he is now too scared to get to the bottom of his own abuse.
"He needs help. The type of help we as parents cannot give him. The key to ridding ourselves of the rapist inside him is to treat the cause. If someone does not deal with Robert's abuse he will re-offend."
I walk to the front door of their Papakura house. Much has been said and much has happened here. They wish me a trusting goodbye. The door shuts out the light behind me and I return to the darkness of another Counties Manukau night.
(c) Freelance New Zealand
Sooo, let's kill this 15 year old kid, right. Is that what everyone wants to do? He's "weak" for giving in to his urges. If he'd just removed himself from contact with other children this wouldn't have happened.
It really like that movie 28 Days Later, where as soon as someone gets the virus you gotta chop them up before they attack you. (sarcasm)
I'm just curious why people do not call for the murder of people who abuse their children physically and mentally as well, if we as a society are so concerned about the children. Physical abuse is part of a cycle, the abused can very easily become the abuser. Why is sexual abuse the only cardinal sin?