Name Mr OB
Hometown Ōtepoti Dunedin, Tauranga
Age when entered care 14 years old
Year of birth 1972 
Type of care facility Boys’ home – Dunedin Boys’ Home (Lookout Point Boys’ Home) in Ōtepoti Dunedin; psychiatric hospital – Ward 17, Tauranga Hospital.
Ethnicity Pākehā 
Whānau background Mr OB has a younger brother and two older sisters. His early memories of family life are of violence and alcohol abuse. His parents separated when he was young and split the children up. His father quickly remarried someone who treated Mr OB and his sister badly.
Currently Mr OB has been married twice and has daughters. He is a patched member of the Mongrel Mob and considers it to be family. He hasn’t had much contact with his children, as their mothers have kept them away from him.

“I felt failed by the system that had already failed me so many times”

When I was growing up, there was a lot of violence in our house. My siblings and I were all beaten up from a very young age. One of my relatives contacted Social Welfare to let them know about the abuse but nothing happened.

When I was 5 years old, our parents got divorced and a social worker asked each of us which parent we wanted to go with. We never got to talk together about what we wanted. My older sister and I ended up going with my father. It was the last time I’d see my mother and other siblings for years. My dad didn’t talk to my mum from then so he didn’t want us to have any contact either.

My dad remarried quite quickly and when I was 7 years old his new wife and her kids moved in with us. She was horrible and her kids were older and heavily addicted to sniffing solvents. She would tell our dad we’d been bad so he’d beat us up. I had to share a bedroom with her eldest son – he was about six or seven years older than me. When I was 8 years old, he started to sexually abuse me. I told my dad but got a hiding for ‘lying’. It’s hard to explain what that does to your head.

The abuse at home only got worse and at school, I was fighting and getting in trouble. When teachers told my parents, I’d get a massive hiding so it was a vicious cycle. I’d wag school so I could shut myself away. At 10 years old, I started sniffing solvents – I just wanted to get away from it all.

When I was 11 years old I ran away and ended up living on the streets. I was sleeping in bushes, always cold and hungry – but it was better than being at home. I got into stealing cars and eventually got busted by the police. Social Welfare took me back to my father. They didn’t even care about where I’d been.

I started drinking, stealing and fighting, I ran away a few more times, and eventually Dad and his wife told me to get out. I was about 12 or 13 years old and went to live with Mum but found it hard to fit in. I went to high school for a few months but left to start working on a dairy farm. I liked working but my addiction and mental health issues meant I only lasted about six months.

When I was about 14 years old the police picked me up and took me to Lookout Point Boys’ Home. I’m not sure why. That place was horrible. Rather than helping troubled kids, it just made us more fucked up. I saw a lot of kids get beaten up and kicked by the staff. We’d be denied food or confined to our room for days if we got in trouble, or sent to isolation – a bare room, with no bed or toilet. We were never asked about our home lives, or why we behaved like we did. We were just treated like prisoners.

I got out when I was about 16 years old and went back on the on the streets – it was better than going home. It was around this time that I first started hanging out with the Mongrel Mob in Dunedin. No one ever gave a shit about me until I met the Mob. They took me in and took care of me. Finding them was the best thing that ever happened to me. I finally had a place where I belonged.

I moved to Oamaru when I was 17 years old and things went well for a few years. I got married, but when I found out my wife was cheating on me, I was shattered and angry. I got a divorce and moved to Queenstown. I still had serious mental health issues and started having health issues too, probably related to the daily beatings I got as a kid.

In the early nineties, I became an ambulance officer for a few years. I loved it. But I was plagued by issues with alcohol and anger. I was also looked down upon because I was in the Mob. I left but keep on volunteering for 18 years.

After several years, I moved to Wellington and became a Level 4 social worker – the training was tough because a lot of my own hurt and grief came to the surface. At this time, I decided to report the sexual abuse I had experienced to the Lower Hutt Police. They said they would chase it up but nothing ever happened.

I met my second wife, we had a daughter and moved to the Bay of Plenty where I worked as a youth social worker. I loved helping kids who were going through what I had been through. I was encouraged to report the sexual assault again, so I went to the Tauranga Police and the detective was good. The police found my stepbrother and said they had 10 charges against him. But those charges were whittled down to two. I was horrified. I felt failed by the system that had already failed me so many times.

A restorative justice meeting was set up, which was portrayed as being for me, the victim, so I could sit with the perpetrator and talk about what had happened and how it affected me. But the meeting wasn’t about me, it was about him. I was there on my own and he had all these support people. I was asked to share a bit about what happened and how the charges came about. But for the rest of the meeting, he got to tell his side of the story. I realised it was just a way for him to get a lesser sentence.

After that meeting I never heard from restorative justice again. I don’t know what happened, whether he went to Court or not. I’ve since found out his marriage broke up because he was sexually abusing his own kids.

I was in a bad way after that. I was angry, carrying all the stuff around from the past and hating myself. I ended up having a massive breakdown in 2004, made several suicide attempts and ended up in Ward 17 of Tauranga Hospital, which is a mental health ward. I was there for five and a half months and it was awful. At one stage I got put into a very secure unit, which was very similar to Lookout Point. The room had no toilet or window and brought back terrible memories.

I was diagnosed with chronic depression and given ECT four times a week, even though I never gave consent. ECT was horrible and affected me heavily. They told me I might get short-term memory loss, but I still have major memory loss. When I got out, I couldn’t even remember my wife and daughter’s name – I had to get their names and birthdates tattooed on my arms so I could remember who they were.

My time in mental hospitals only made my mental issues worse and I became even more depressed. I found out my wife had been with another man while I was in the mental hospital, and she ended up leaving me and taking my daughter with her. When I got home, she had packed up all my stuff and left it on the doorstep. Since then, I’ve been on the sickness benefit and in and out of hospital feeling depressed and suicidal. I’ve mostly been unemployed, and I’ve struggled for money and a place to live. I was in emergency housing for about eight months. Once I got a job they kicked me out – if you have a job then you can’t be in emergency housing. How does that work?

People need support when they get out of a mental health unit, and I don’t feel I’ve been given that. I’ve never been offered counselling. Not once has anyone sat down with me and simply listened. How can people begin to understand me without ever having heard where I come from and what I’ve been through? The system shuts a lot of people up, but someone should start listening. That can happen.

A few years ago, I got drunk at a friend’s house, found his sawn-off shotgun and I said I was going to shoot myself. He pulled the gun off me and hid it, then called the police, who were meant to make a welfare check on me. But they also notified the Armed Offenders Squad, who turned up. I woke up hearing them calling my name outside. I walked outside – I was unarmed and still intoxicated – and walked down the driveway and got onto my knees. They kneed me in the side and I was flat on the ground. Then they kicked me in the head and knocked me out. They dragged my face and body all over the rough concrete. I was transferred back to Ward 17, covered in cuts, bruises and scratches. I asked if staff could clean me up but they said I was okay – but the cuts got badly infected. I took the issue to the Independent Police Conduct Authority, but they said there was no grounds for a complaint and what the officers did was fine. How is it right to beat up an unarmed, mentally ill man? I felt the system had let me down once again.

The only ones who have supported me is the Mongrel Mob. Without them I would’ve topped myself. I’ve faced a lot of discrimination because I’m a gang member. But I’m not a bad person, I’ve never been to prison. Many gang members have experienced abuse and trauma as kids. The majority have been in State care and got abused there. Their mental health isn’t good either. Gang members ring me saying they are struggling and want help. We’ve been abandoned by the system and our families, so we make our own system and we are family. All I can do is listen, but counselling would help too.

Those of us who have been in State care, who are in need, we’re simply not getting the follow up and help we require. A lot of what goes on isn’t talked about, and that needs to change. The system needs to be held accountable. That needs to change and we need people like me to help make those changes.

We need input from the people who are going through it themselves.[290]