Name Mr VV  
Age when entered care 12 years old  
Hometown Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland  
Year of birth 1959 
Type of care facility Ōwairaka Boys’ Home, Hokio Beach School, Holdsworth School, Kohitere Boys’ Training Centre.  
Ethnicity Niuean, Māori (Ngāpuhi) 
Whānau background Mr VV’s father was Niuean-Tahitian and his mum was Māori. He can trace his whakapapa to Rahiri, the famous tūpuna of Ngāpuhi. He has three younger siblings and two older siblings, who all grew up together in Pakuranga.
Current Mr VV is serving a sentence of preventive detention and has spent eight years in prison. He is the father of 13 children.  

“I was taken out of a good home and put into places where I lost my identity and suffered horrific abuse”  

Child Welfare got involved with my family because I wasn’t going to school. My records say that I first came to the attention of Child Welfare in February 1971 because of some offending. 

I was sent to Ōwairaka Boys’ Home on a Child Welfare warrant. The police took me to Ōwairaka the first time. I was only there for a few weeks, but was taken straight to the secure unit where I was locked in my cell for 23 hours a day. When I was allowed out of my cell, I had to do harsh physical training as punishment. I didn’t go to school, and I didn’t get any books or anything else to do. I only had a shower every few days and ate my meals in my cells. I strongly recall not being allowed to do anything during the day, not even look out the window, which only looked out onto a concrete wall anyway. I remember the ceiling of my cell was made out of Perspex plastic, which meant I had no natural light. I didn’t get a lot of food in secure, because it was sometimes withheld as punishment. Sometimes we were only given corn on the cob to eat, and I was so hungry that I would eat the cob as well.  

There is only one record which suggests my social worker looked for alternative care for me. There’s a note in my file that talks about Māori foster families not wanting a part-Niuean boy, and Niuean foster parents saying they did not want to care for a part-Māori boy. I was not aware of this. I don’t think my social worker ever looked for a foster placement for me. I didn’t even know I had a social worker. The social worker also said my extended family didn’t want to care for me.  But nobody in my family ever mentioned being asked by a social worker to help care for me. I had a lot of paternal cousins close by, as well as my mum’s sisters who also lived close by. The two sides of the family often got together and there were no problems. There were lots of options for my social worker but those were never explored. 

Later on, I was transferred from Ōwairaka to Hokio Beach School, just out of Levin. I got an initiation beating from the other boys. I was punched, kicked and stomped on until I started crying. For my first few months at Hokio, I got beaten up almost every day by older boys.  

I experienced horrific abuse at Hokio. There was a staff member at Hokio, a Māori man who was pretty fit and had large, bulging eyes. The first time he abused me, he came into my room at night while I was sleeping. He sat on my bed and fondled me in an aggressive way, while asking me if I was going to run away. Then he jumped on me, and dry humped me. He forcibly kissed me and put his tongue in my mouth. I tried to scream, so he stopped. I told a staff member about it, he said to me, “Well, did he hurt you?” When I said, “No”, he said not to worry about it. 

My abuser would watch me have a shower, which I found really difficult, then offer me a cigarette and tell me to come down to the shower block to smoke it. When we’d get there, he’d rape me. This happened multiple times. After the first time, I would try to fight him off. He would beat me up to stop me fighting back and hold me down by my neck with a hand over my mouth. He made me perform oral sex on him once as well. To keep me quiet, he would hit me around the back of my head with an open palm and kick me in the backside. I would get a sore head and bruising, and bleed from the rapes. 

I never talked about what happened with anyone, but I remember the boys had a kind of code language they talked in. Everyone knew he was doing something bad to boys.  

Later I was transferred to Holdsworth School, where there was physical violence among the boys and sexual abuse from staff. One staff member came into my room very late at night and woke me up. He rolled me onto my side and forced me to perform oral sex on him. I cried and begged but he wouldn’t let my head go. I really struggled at Holdsworth because of the abuse, and I ran away at least once and spent a night in police custody.  

I was in and out of different places for a while after that. In 1973 I was admitted to Kohitere Training Centre. By this time, I was really institutionalised. I was the one dishing out the violence, because I had learned what to do at all the other institutions. That was all I knew. I was put in the secure unit at Kohitere a few times – my records confirm that I spent three weeks in secure in September 1973, because of my “poor performance and disruptive behaviour”. The notes also say that I hadn't been very productive as a member of the work group, and suggested that I could return to the Islands, “where his present way of life could be acceptable”. It's pretty hurtful to read things like that in my records. It sounds very racist to me. 

I went back to live with my parents and was sent to live with some family in Niue. I spent almost two years there. When I got back home, I got a job with my dad and did a stint at borstal. 

I joined the Black Power when I was about 17 years old. A lot of us had been in the boys' homes and the gang gave me a sense of belonging and identity. I’m still affiliated now, but I would call myself an ‘elder statesman’ rather than an active member. 

I wasn’t taught anything about my culture or identity in the boys' homes. I never had te reo lessons or learned anything about tikanga or my whakapapa. Most of what I’ve learned, I learned in my 30s. I have a Diploma in Māori Studies, and I’ve completed 13 of 21 papers of a Bachelor’s degree at Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiarangi. I advise on matters of tikanga and help other people. I’m fluent in te reo Māori. 

The Child Welfare staff didn't even say my name properly for the entire time I was a State ward. I was taken out of a good home and put into places where I lost my identity and suffered horrific abuse. So many of the records from my time in State care describe me as an adept and clever burglar. I was only 12 years old when they wrote those things about me. I often owned up to burglaries, rather than getting caught. It feels like those notes were written to justify my placement in those hell holes. 

The time in the boys’ homes made me who I am today, and I think it resulted in me being subjected to long-term imprisonment. [239]