The Children’s Commissioner has told the Abuse in Care Royal Commission that his office has failed to properly monitor the state care system.
Since 1989, the Office of the Children’s Commissioner has had the role of independent monitor of the practices and policies of Child, Youth and Family, which became Oranga Tamariki.
Published in Radio New Zealand
A clinical child psychologist has told the Royal Commission on Abuse in Care that children were often better off in state care than staying in families where they were abused.
The commission is currently holding hearings in Auckland.
Published in Radio New Zealand
A woman has told the Royal Commission investigating abuse in care she was moved between at least a dozen care homes and raped multiple times – all before she turned 16.
The inquiry investigating abuse in state and faith-based care heard yesterday from Dallas Pickering, who detailed publicly for the first time the violent abuse she experienced as a child.
Published in Radio New Zealand
A decision to change a controversial school’s name has been put on hold while Dunedin’s Bishop waits for word from Rome.
Published in Radio New Zealand
The Vatican’s repeated refusal to cooperate with official investigations into paedophile priests and its delay in stripping convicted offenders of their clerical status has been condemned by the UK’s child sexual abuse inquiry.
In a highly critical attack on the papacy’s stonewalling response to decades of complaints, the lead counsel to the inquiry, Brian Altman QC, said it was “very disappointing” that significant evidence and statements had been withheld.
Published in The Guardian
Witnesses have this morning begun giving evidence at the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State Care.
One of the first to appear will be high-profile former prisoner Arthur Taylor, who will describe the abuse he suffered in a boy’s home.
Twenty-eight people will share their experiences of being in the system between 1950 and 1999 over the coming weeks.
A final report from the inquiry is not expected until 2023.
Published in TVNZ
30 October 2019
Peter Lineham talks about the issues arising from the unlikely defence by children’s author, Joy Cowley, of a disgraced bishop.
Listen online at Radio New Zealand
By the Panel
Published in Radio New Zealand
16 October 2019
The handling of historic sexual offending within the Catholic Diocese of Dunedin by then-Bishop John Kavanagh has been referred to the Vatican by New Zealand’s top Catholic.
Published in Radio New Zealand
A support group for survivors of sexual abuse by priests wants more transparency over an agreement struck with the Catholic Diocese of Dunedin.
But the call by Dr Christopher Longhurst, representing the New Zealand branch of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (Snap), has also triggered an acrimonious exchange with another support group.
Published in Otago Daily Times
Warning: This story discusses issues related to rape and sexual violence.
Survivors have extended an olive branch to those running the Royal Commission of Inquiry into state abuse. Laura Walters reports on growing frustrations over a lack of communication a fortnight on from revelations survivors were exposed to a convicted child sex offender.
Published in Newsroom
A Melbourne man is fighting to hold the Catholic church accountable for three clerics and a teacher who sexually violated him as a boy in Otago. Marc – RNZ won’t use his surname – has come back to New Zealand to give evidence and to beg the Royal Commission to weigh in on his second bid for some kind of justice. Phil Pennington reports.
By Morning Report
Published in Radio New Zealand
11 October 2019
The man whose child sex abuse case gripped the city of Christchurch and the nation, has died.
Peter Ellis’ death comes just five weeks before his last bid to clear his name before the Supreme Court.
The 61-year-old was jailed for a decade in 1993, on 16 counts of sexual offending against seven children at the Christchurch Civic creche.
Published in News Hub
The Catholic bishop of Palmerston North is expected to resign after less than eight years in the job.
Stuff understands Pope Francis has been asked, or will be asked on Friday, to accept 59-year-old Bishop Charles Drennan’s resignation. The reasons for the resignation are not known.
Drennan has been the only bishop on the support group known as Te Rōpū Tautoko, which was set up to manage co-operation between the Catholic Church and the Abuse in Care Royal Commission.
Published in Stuff
Abstract: The rate of violent victimization against children with disabilities is thought to be lower than the rate for children without disabilities but several studies shows otherwise.
This paper is available at Science Direct
December 2019
New Zealand’s Catholic bishops have been accused of lacking moral leadership as church groups decide whether to waive confidentiality clauses in compensation agreements reached with abuse survivors.
Survivor advocates say bishops’ silence on the issue, as the Royal Commission of Inquiry into historic abuse gears up for public hearings, goes against recent edicts by Pope Francis directing senior clerics to build trust with survivors by being transparent and ensuring victims’ voices are heard.
Published in Radio New Zealand
Internal Affairs Minister Tracey Martin has refused to express confidence in the leadership of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care, after it was revealed a convicted child sex offender was involved.
Published in YYY