Name Debbie Morris-Jenkins
Year of birth 1976
Hometown Ōtautahi Christchurch
Time in care 1981–1983
Type of care facility Children’s home – Christchurch Methodist Children’s Home; foster homes – private faith foster homes.
Whānau background Debbie is third of five children, and three of them went into care. Her parents did not have a happy marriage, and her father spent time in Sunnyside Hospital.
Currently Debbie has a supportive partner, and her children know about her childhood and have told her they are proud of what she’s come through and achieved. The consequences of the trauma she experienced continue to impact both Debbie and her whānau, and often create friction within the whānau including outbursts and arguments. After going through church redress, she received financial compensation from the Methodist Church.

Mum and Dad had been in the Cooperites – Neville Cooper’s Christian community in Springbank. We escaped after they saw things going wrong in the community, but we didn’t have a lot of support. Dad would do house painting to try and get by, but Mum was disabled – she had hip replacements – and couldn’t care for five children. Basically, their marriage fell apart, they couldn’t cope and started drinking, so people at their church encouraged them to send us to the Methodist Children’s Home in Christchurch.

My oldest sister and the baby stayed with Mum but the rest of us were put in the home. I didn’t have much to take aside from a nightie and a wee panda bear. The bear was special, it was the only real possession I had.

My caregiver at the home was mean and horrible. One night I vomited on my panda bear, and she made me throw it away. If I wet the bed, she’d give me a smack and make me sleep in it. Given the slightest chance, she’d ridicule and punish us. Once, my brother and I didn’t want to eat some pumpkin, so we dropped it under the table. She made us eat it off the floor like dogs.

In the Cooperites, your hair was your crowning glory and Mum had always said, “Don’t ever cut your hair or I’ll never speak to you again”. But in the home, we had to line up outside in the freezing cold with bowls on our head to get a haircut. I bawled my eyes out, but they just smacked me.

We were targeted horrendously at school, even by the teachers, who would whack us with their rulers. And if we were punished at school, we’d also get punished at the home. I felt like I was punished the whole time.

In the school holidays we were told someone would pick us up and then we had to go with those people, not knowing who they were. When I was about 6 or 7 years old, a couple took me for two weeks. She wasn’t around a lot, and he raped me daily. They lived in a grey brick house, with flats down the back. He would put a towel on the bed, give me a dolly and use it to show me what we were going to do. Then he’d just get on me and rape me. I was just a little girl and I’d be screaming in pain, wondering why the neighbours couldn’t hear me as they were so close. Then he’d say, “Don’t tell anyone, it’s our secret”.

I think I was there near the end of my stay at the children’s home because I remember when Dad got me from the home, I thought, “Thank God I won’t have to go back to that foster couple again”.

The thought he might have done it to someone else has tormented me over the years.

When I was 13 or 14, I broke down and told Mum what had happened. I had never told anyone else, it was such a shameful thing. She took me to the police and I was so mortified, embarrassed and ashamed that I just clammed up and didn’t speak much. They told Mum they wouldn’t pursue it as there wasn’t any evidence – it was my word against his.

I trusted the police and they didn’t listen to what I was saying. They just assumed I was making things up and wasting police time. Years later I saw the police report and the reasons for not prosecuting my foster carer. It said the police doctor found that I’d lost my virginity but could’ve lost it riding a horse or falling off a bike. I ended up burning the report because it was so traumatising.

I was a rebellious teenager, but I started to rebel even more after that. I got expelled from school at one stage – surely adults should have wondered why? I mean, if you’ve had a normal life and everything’s going okay, you don’t do things like that.

A few months after I told the police, my mother's boyfriend drugged and raped me. We had to go back to the police station again, but he’d used a date rape drug that leaves your system quite quickly, so there was no evidence and he got away with it. After that, I started to rebel even more, hanging out with gangs and bad people. I ended up being gang raped by the Road Knights. But that was just my life – I thought there was no point in telling anyone because when I did, no one listened. I thought it was my fault because it happened so much, and I must have put myself in that situation. So I didn’t go to the police, I just kept it to myself.

I think through all that hardship I must be a born fighter – otherwise I would’ve gone the other way and ended up in jail or worse. But what happened while I was under the care of the children’s home, and afterwards, built up inside me for years. It affected my life. I’ve had anger issues, eating disorders and attempted to kill myself. I thought my parents didn’t have faith in me, and being bashed and raped was all I was good for. I have felt unworthy and not good enough, and that I will never amount to anything. It wasn’t a very blessed, fulfilled life.

That children’s home was like a haven for sexual predators. It’s just not acceptable to give a child to any person that says, “I’ll take a kid” and thinks, “you can pay me while I rape them for two weeks”.

A Methodist representative looked at records from the children’s home and there’s actually a note saying that foster couple wasn’t suitable to care for children, yet I was still sent there. There was also a note saying I had specifically asked not to go back to them. I have wished someone else would come forward and say they were also raped by that man because it would validate me, would know in my heard it was true.

Not being believed extended into my whole life – I thought I was never going to be able to fulfil any dreams or succeed at anything. If things had been different, I could have become a police officer like I wanted to. It was a big shame I could never fulfil my potential because nobody gave a shit.

In late 2019, we heard the Methodist Church was looking for people to come forward for church redress. I never asked for money, so getting that was a bonus. The impact of the abuse meant my whole life and earning ability had been affected and I was never going to have a chance to make that money myself.

However, for me, the redress was about finally being heard, listened to and hearing them say they had failed me. It was about the recognition, the record and the apology.

All I wanted was to be heard.[183]

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