Name Susan Kenny
Hometown Ahuriri Napier
Age when entered care 12 years old
Year of birth 1954
Time in care 1962 to 1971
Type of care facility Girls’ homes – Margaret Street Girls’ Home in Te Papaioea Palmerston North, Miramar Girls’ Home in Te Whanganui-ā-tara Wellington, Kingslea Girls’ Home in Ōtautahi Christchurch; psychiatric hospitals –Sunnyside Hospital in Ōtautahi Christchurch, Porirua Hospital, Lake Alice Hospital in Rangitikei; family home – Taradale; borstal – Arohata in Te Whanganui-ā-tara Wellington.
Ethnicity Māori (Ngāti Apa)
Whānau background Susan has two younger brothers, and two older half-brothers on her mother’s side. Susan was the only child in her whānau who went into care.
Currently Susan has five children and has been with her husband John for more than 20 years. Her children were taken off her by the State; one of them was adopted out. Her youngest daughter died in 2010 when she gave birth to twins; Susan and John are raising her children.

I ended up in care because I kept running away, and I was running away because my half-brother was sexually abusing me. Everything had been alright in my childhood until that started. I was 9 years old, and he would have been about 16 years old. He told me if I told anyone, he’d kill me.

I grew up in Napier, living with my parents and my two older half-brothers on my mum’s side, and my two younger brothers. My mother didn’t really like me – I didn’t have a close, loving relationship with her. I don’t remember being cuddled. One of my half-brothers told me she didn’t want me anyway. I did have a good relationship with my father, who was a very peaceful man and didn’t like conflict.

I ended up telling my mother about my half-brother sexually abusing me, and she took me to the doctor to check if I was still a virgin. I remember it clearly – she bought me an ice cream and told me we don’t talk about these things with anyone else. The police were called and there was a big fight. My half-brother was removed from our home. My mother then had a breakdown.

Even though my half-brother had been removed from the home, I kept running away. I was confused – I wanted to be home, but I also didn’t want to be there. I wasn’t allowed to talk about the abuse at home, and I used to have a horrible guilty feeling that it was all my fault.

One month I ran away so many times, my social worker decided I had to go into care. I remember the police telling me I ran away 50 times in one month. I was playing on a playground and was dragged off by a social worker. First to a psychiatrist and then to the Taradale Family Home.

At the home I was sexually abused. The father of the home made me stand in the laundry naked, and he touched me, sexually. He said I had to stay there, naked, in the laundry so I couldn’t run away. I found a pair of shorts and ran away. I told a social worker why I ran away, but he wasn’t interested and didn’t believe me. He thought I was a bad girl and a liar.

I was taken to Margaret Street Girls’ Home in Horowhenua for a few weeks. I ran away as soon as I got there, and when they took me back, a staff member suggested to the other girls they should kick me and punch me.

Then I was sent to Miramar Girls’ Home in Wellington, where I was physically and sexually abused. The social worker said I was being sent there because no one could control me and I was a delinquent. That’s a crazy thing to say to a child.

At Miramar I was put in secure, where a male staff member punched me in the head and face. I think it was punishment for running away and being a nuisance – they were frustrated by my behaviour. I was raped by one of the male staff members, a man with red hair.

They gave us internal examinations at Miramar, which were humiliating and degrading. Every time you ran away and came back you had to have one before you went back among the other girls. The examination was to check for venereal diseases. If you complied, it would be mainly done by female staff. If you didn’t comply, then it would be done with both male and female staff present. The examinations became commonplace for me.

Later I was in Kingslea, a bloody hell hole. I was subjected to anti-psychotic medication and forced paraldehyde injections. I spent most of my time locked in secure, and drugged up – I think they drugged me so I couldn’t run away. I was unable to move, even if I wanted to. If I did anything wrong, they injected me in my backside – staff held me down and I’d feel like my neck was going to snap off. I was also given Tryptanol and Largactil, and I knew to take those because if I did, I wouldn’t have to get an injection. The medication made me heavily sedated and very fat. I was drugged up most of the time.

I had an internal examination in a police cell once, done by a man and a woman. It was horrible and humiliating. I felt like I had no rights and in everyone’s eyes I was bad. I was about 14 years old at the time and had run away to Timaru with another girl.

I had little stints of school at Kingslea but most of the time I was locked up and I couldn’t go. In my files it says I was below average intelligence. I very much kept to myself while I was there – I don’t think I caused trouble.

The doctor I saw at Kingslea was a nutcase psychiatrist. He made me think I was nuts. He used to ask me what colour the grass was, and if I said what colour it was, he would change it. He asked if I heard voices and I thought I’d be smart and say yes. That was not a wise thing to do.

I was sent to Sunnyside, given medication along the same lines as what I was given at Kingslea, and put in a ward of people who had committed murders. There was one lady who told us she had murdered her husband and cut him up. It was terrifying and I wondered if I would be next. I saw violence every day – the patients were unpredictable, mainly men bashing the staff with seats. It was horrible and I hated it. I had trouble sleeping there. I remember having a thing stuck on my head – I think it was an ECG, but I don’t remember exactly.

I don’t even know why I was sent to Sunnyside.

I wrote letters to my social workers about what was happening to me in the institutions. I told them about the abuse, by letter and in person. I told them about the bashings and the internal examinations. Some, but not all of the letters I wrote were on my file when I requested it from MSD – none of the letters I wrote about the abuse had been put in my file.

When I was younger I thought my social worker supported me and was a friend of mine, because that’s how he came across. Later on, when I read the things he wrote about me in my file, I realised he thought I was a liar.

I was sent to Arohata Borstal for two years and nine months, at just 15 years old. The first thing they asked when I got to borstal was if I wanted to keep taking my medication. I said no, and the staff put it in the rubbish.

I ran away twice. One of the staff got up in assembly and announced that no girl had managed to escape in two years. She shouldn’t have said that because I saw it as a challenge. I ran away that night and escaped back to Hastings. I wanted to go back to my parents.

I had no schooling while at borstal – I just worked on a farm, and didn’t get any skills I needed for living. There were some really hardened women and girls there. I got to meet a lot of the undesirables – some had committed murder. I was nearly 18 years old when I left, and when I got out I went on probation.

During my time at Arohata I went to Porirua Hospital for a brief visit – just a few days and nights. I was supposed to be there as a voluntary patient – the woman who ran Arohata arranged it for me to help me get out. I think she thought she was doing something good.

Although I was a voluntary patient I was locked in my room at night. A staff member told me I was there for good. I managed to escape with another patient but the police caught us and I was taken to Lake Alice.

They put me on medication that made me very sleepy and unable to move. It was horrible, I just sat there like a zombie. I wasn’t like the other patients there – they were really mentally ill and didn’t know who they were. Someone said she was Queen Elizabeth. I had no psychiatrist visits and didn’t see any other kids while I was there. I saw staff hitting and kicking patients for things like wetting the bed. They didn’t deserve the treatment they were given.

I was too scared to say anything or do anything wrong, so I just shut up, and eventually I was sent back to Arohata. All the women I met there, their souls were just as broken as mine.

I would hate anyone else to walk my path in life. State care sent me into a spiral of despair that no young girl should ever have to experience. I came from a family where all my siblings ended up in top jobs, whereas I went on to attempt suicide, go to psychiatric hospitals and end up addicted to anti-anxiety pills. I’ve experienced panic attacks and I’ve had a number of abusive relationships in my life. I had no qualifications when I left care, and that impacted the sort of work I could find.

I feel like I’ve been judged because I was in care. People make assumptions about you.

I’m so distrustful of social welfare not just from my experience as a child but also later with my own children. The same social worker who put me in care also took great delight in taking my own children off me. She claimed I left my daughter in the house alone. I adopted my son out, thinking I was doing the right thing.

We need to believe children – what children are telling us is not a pack of lies. What children are saying should be believed and acted upon.

I want to share my experiences and tell the government and the people of New Zealand that this really did happen. I am amazed I have survived to tell my journey of abuse at the hands of my so-called carer, the State.[1]