Name Shaye Parkinson
Hometown Waitara
Age when entered care 8 years old 
Year of birth 1986 
Time in care 1995–2000
Type of care facility Residential school – McKenzie Residential School in Ōtautahi Christchurch; foster homes in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland (Waipareira Trust), Hāwera and Waitara; youth justice residences – Te Papaioea Palmerston North, Weymouth Boys’ Home in South Tāmaki Makaurau.
Ethnicity Māori (Te Atiawa)
Whānau background Shaye has a brother and a sister. 
Currently Shaye lives with his partner and is still struggling with the impacts from his time in care alongside the difficulties of the claims process.

“I lived in terror that I might be raped again” 

I don’t remember much of my childhood. There were difficulties at home because my father was physically abusive and a bit of an alcoholic who hit my mum. I was diagnosed with ADD at an early age.

By the time I was about 7 years old, I began stealing and committing petty crimes. That’s when CYFS got involved. When I was 8 years old, I was put on a plane and shipped off to McKenzie Residential School in Christchurch. I never really got told why, but I put it down to my behaviour. I remember crying at the airport, and my mum crying.

During my time at McKenzie, I was sexually abused by the staff member who was in control of the lolly room. He would frequently take children into his office and give them lollies. This would generally happen on a Friday night which was movie night, or on the days children arrived back at McKenzie from the holidays. He was widely known among the children as ‘the dirty old man’ or ‘the lolly man’. I referred to him as ‘the scary man’.

On three occasions he took me into his office for a chat, asking me about my time at home. He gave me lollies out of the box, and talked to me about people I knew, like my family. He groped my buttocks, and asked me to sit on his knee and rocked me back and forwards. Those assaults made me feel frightened and uncomfortable, but I didn’t feel able to object while I was alone with him in his office.

I was also raped by another child. One evening, a boy in my dorm came into my bed and raped me, using violence to restrain me. He masturbated and licked my back and anally penetrated me during the assault, which lasted about 15 minutes. No staff members were around when this happened – staff only checked the dorm rooms occasionally during the evenings. Afterwards, he threatened to kill me if I reported the incident to anyone.

He was probably a year or two older than me. He had a reputation for being aggressive and talking about sexually profane subjects. I recall he was also receiving some mental health supervision or special treatment – he got other help that we didn’t. I was scared of him before the rape as he was bigger than me. Afterwards, I lived in terror that I might be raped again, often crying myself to sleep.

Then there was the physical abuse. I was always beaten up there, crying without crying, bleeding noses. I was physically abused by a number of boys, particularly one larger boy who beat me and intimidated me – sometimes to steal my belongings, like my basketball cards. I suffered bruising as a result of these beatings.

If you did something or said something naughty in school, they’d lock you in a room. I was often placed in a secure unit or time out room. I was made to stand still with my arms folded to calm down before I was allowed out. The ‘blue line’ was another form of punishment. It was a straight line in the hall – I had to go stand on that line for a couple of hours after school. I wasn’t allowed off that line.

I was at McKenzie for over a year before I was discharged to go to Motonui Primary School in Waitara. When I got expelled from there, the teacher had all my meds stacked up. My controlled meds had to go to the teachers to be locked away, but he hadn’t been giving them to me.

I endured CYFS homes all around New Zealand. In Auckland, at a Waipareira Trust foster home, I was introduced to prostitutes and I was smoking dope from the caregiver. That's why I spent most of my life running from CYFS homes – scared, running home.

I went to CYFS homes in Hāwera and Waitara. Waitara was alright because I knew the guy who ran it. I got involved in the Waitara Rowing Club, and the yachting. I was a coxswain in the rowing club and I got to sit in the front seat and steer the rowing boats.

At the weekend, in Hāwera, another caregiver would come and pick us up and take us to his farmhouse – I’d just sit there on the couch, drinking piss and smoking dope. This was when I was 10 or 11 years old – up until I was old enough to hit Family Court and then I was in residences all over New Zealand. I’d still just run scared – get beaten up every day and then just run, steal a car and drive home, or jump on the back of a bus. I was only young.

Palmerston North and Weymouth are the two residences I can remember, but most of them were just prisons. I got hidings at Palmerston North and I got beaten up at Weymouth too.

At Palmerston North, they had a staff member who got sacked for smoking dope and cigarettes, and watching porn in the gym. He set up the TV and took all the Pacific Island boys. We wondered why all these Islander boys and Māori were going and throwing sticks around in the hall, behind the curtains, but they got caught out.

I remember being taught some discipline. I learned how to wood carve there and I later learned my whakapapa, so that’s what I liked about that place.

I made complaints about a staff member at Weymouth – he was a big, muscly Samoan wrestler guy. He put me in submission locks between his legs and pulled my neck back. He was pretty scary.

You get scared and you run. The emergency fire doors were magnets and they’d have to re-latch, so at 12 o’clock at night I put a pen spring in there and we were off. Bang, and the fire doors opened, and we were over the fence, running – ran into an electric fence. Ended up in some Samoan’s shed stealing a stolen car.

I was back there a week later – we got caught in a high-rise apartment that was getting built in Auckland. We were in the Pink Batts trying to keep warm. Dumb stuff like that all stacks up in Youth Court and makes you look real bad and that’s why I have a reputation. The police don’t care about me. They’d happily shoot me dead and say that I had a gun pointed at them – that’s how I feel.

My records said that at only 8 years old I was placed in a harsh, badly supervised environment where violence was common, and where I was vulnerable to sexual predation by staff and residents. My experience of abuse at McKenzie caused me to develop distrustful anti-social behaviours, anti-authority attitudes, and various mental health problems. These issues have profoundly altered the course of my life, making me unable to function in a normal society and priming me for a future of institutionalisation.

Indeed, following my placement at McKenzie, I was placed in various social welfare residences and institutions around New Zealand. During my adult life, I’ve been incarcerated multiple times. I’ve spent most of my life in prison – six months was the longest I’d ever been out of jail until now.

It’s impacted my opportunities to get work. There are jobs out there and I'm applying for them, and turning up to the appointments. If you’ve got criminal convictions, you tell the truth – at least you told the truth.

Since my childhood I've struggled with major anxiety and depression. I had anger management issues for which I received counselling. I'm on meds for my ADD, anxiety and depression. I’ve been very suicidal at different stages in my life. I isolate myself from a lot of people, but there are times when I push myself to take my dog for a walk down the beach just to get outside and among the community – because, in my eyes, I’m a valuable member of society.[411]