Daycare where Malachi Subecz attended with injuries in months before his murder has licence cancelled
Tuesday, 4 October 2022
The daycare Malachi Subecz attended with extensive injuries in the months leading up to his murder has been closed down by the Ministry of Education.
Children will not be able to attend Abbey’s Place Childcare Centre in Tauranga from Friday, after the centre failed to meet any of the conditions placed on it by the Ministry.
After being placed on a provisional licence on May 17, a Ministry review found the centre did not do what was required of it to remain open.
This included conducting a formal internal review into the incident, ensuring the centre manager understood their obligations around child safety, identifying failures, providing evidence there was a clear pathway for escalating abuse concerns, and giving staff and board members training in how to identify and respond to child abuse.
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**
Malachi attended the daycare with visible wounds on September 27, 2021, which were seen and photographed by the daycare.
But staff didn’t alert any agencies to the injuries, which included a cluster of bruises under his chin, a scratch on his lower jaw, a large swelling on his forehead which hair had been pulled over, and a progressively blackening left eye.
Stuff later revealed the centre staff instead questioned Malachi’s caregiver, Michaela Barriball, about the wounds, in direct contravention of its own child protection policies.
Barriball would go on to inflict more abuse and torture on the 5-year-old child, which culminated in his death in Starship Hospital on November 12, 2021.
Barriball was jailed for life with a non-parole period of 17 years on June 30.
The Ministry attended the centre on May 4, the same day Stuff revealed photographs taken of the abuse were not discovered by police until after Malachi’s death.
The centre’s licence was downgraded on May 17, after it visited and found “procedural failures” in dealing with suspected abuse including breaching at least two licencing regulations around health and safety and governance procedures. This included a centre manager being responsible for resolving the matter while on bereavement leave, with no apparent alternative steps for escalating abuse concerns to authorities.
The centre was being visited weekly. It had a roll of 37 children at the time of its May 2022 Education Review Office report.
Parents with children at the centre would be supported, Ministry of Education deputy secretary Te Tai Whenua Jocelyn Mikaere said.
“We have contacted all the parents impacted by the closure and are supporting them to enrol their children at a new service.”
A family member previously told Stuff she rang the daycare in late June 2021 to warn them of her concerns Malachi was being abused, and asked them to keep a lookout. They told her they would make a note of it, she said.
Two days after the injuries were seen by the daycare on September 27, 2021, Barriball stopped bringing him in, court documents stated. He was booked to attend the daycare until October 15, but never returned.
An all-of-system review into Malachi’s death, which will look into how six Government departments who came into contact with Malachi might have prevented his death, is expected to report back in December.
The Review of Children’s Sector Response to Abuse is being led by Dame Karen Poutasi.
The centre has been approached for comment.