The Gloriavale child death that the community tried to cover up
Monday, 15 August 2016
How has a reclusive Christian community managed to cover up the death of a child, in concerning circumstances, for more than a year? And why? The Circuit team investigates.
We've never met Sharon Ready, or MaryAnne Green as she once was. She's been a member of the isolated Cooperites community, now Gloriavale, for more than 40 years. We're not allowed in to see her, we can't talk to her on the phone.
Yet we feel as though we know Sharon, or at least have a very strong sense of her; of what drives and guides her.
Partly that's through hearing her siblings and her children on the outside speak of her. And partly it's through phone conversations her family has let us hear. They may have been apart for 40 years but the love and affection in those phone calls is alive, and mutual.
It's important to state here that Sharon is unaware we've been allowed to listen to these conversations, but her siblings want us to hear what she's like, to witness who she is.
And those wider family members have had a determination for the past year that we should be able to tell the story of Prayer Ready - Sharon's daughter - a 14-year-old girl with Down Syndrome, who died at Gloriavale in June 2015.
Their determination is why, despite Gloriavale having fought long and hard through the courts to suppress our story of Prayer's death, we had no qualms about fighting back.
Because listening to Sharon's voice, her manner, her words, has given us a measure of understanding of her. We know enough of her principles and her integrity to know she would want the truth told. It is quintessential, fundamental to her nature. She cannot lie.
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There's a namelessness and facelessness to the hundreds of people who live at Gloriavale, secluded on the banks of Lake Haupiri on the West Coast. Those who've lost the names they were born with. The fact that they're all required to dress the same way.
Back in the 70s it was still a developing community, based then at Cust in North Canterbury, run by Neville Cooper and his then wife Gloria, after whom the community would eventually be re-named.
Its communal nature held the promise of respite to a recently widowed woman - Ivy Rerehuia Green - and her nine children.
Ivy's husband Tuakana (Boy) Green accidentally drowned at the mouth of the Waiapu River, at Tikitiki near Gisborne, in 1971. The family held a deep faith, and they knew Neville Cooper. So Cooper invited Ivy and her children to visit him and his fledgling community in Cust.
A family portrait, including a young Sharon Ready, her mother Ivy and father Tuakana (Boy) Green. (SUPPLIED)
They stayed.
Polly Withington was one of those children.'I think at the time that she [our mother] was…fairly desperate, you know, in mourning, with the loss of our dad, the main income earner. Panic about what's going to happen with her kids, of course, definitely'.
It had seemed to them, at the outset, like an adventure, travelling from the North Island to the South, where they'd never been.
But Polly says life in the community quickly became oppressive, and one by one, over many years, they left.
Everyone, that is, except Sharon, the eldest.
When the last of the Greens - younger sisters Ruth and Eunice - fled in 1976, Sharon was 19, married to Clem Ready, and pregnant with her first child.
In the coming years she would begin work as a teacher, have 12 more children, and become a grandmother to 45.
Along the way, according to her family, she suffered nine miscarriages. 'She was pregnant or breastfeeding practically her entire adult life', says Ruth. 'She must have been exhausted.'
Prayer Ready and her mother, Sharon Ready, photographed shortly before Prayer died (SUPPLIED)
Her youngest child Prayer was born with Down syndrome when Sharon was 45 years old.
Her family says there was no deeper motherly love, no want for care; Prayer was with Sharon constantly. And every day Sharon would pray to the Lord about Prayer; about how she should care for her and look after her.
So there is no question that on June 4th last year Sharon would have been doing her utmost, as she always did, to care for her youngest daughter.
They were in what's commonly known at Gloriavale as an isolation room - rooms attached to each hostel on the compound. People are sent there when they're sick; Circuit has been told there can be an almost panicked reaction to illness due to the fear of it spreading like wildfire through the whole community.
So concerned are the leaders that, as confirmed by multiple sources, it's common practice to remove or disable the door handles so children can't easily get in or out. Think about that for a minute: isolation rooms with inoperable door handles.
Image: TOBY LONGBOTTOM
Which was exactly the case on that June evening last year.
There was another adult present in the room too, Stephen Ben-Canaan. He's the father of four younger children who were being held in isolation because another of their siblings was very sick, and there were fears they might all be contagious.
Circuit has been told Ben-Canaan was eating his dinner, as was Prayer, while Sharon was heating a meal in the microwave, and had her back to her daughter.
And then, all of a sudden, Prayer Ready began to choke on a piece of meat - deep fried wiener schnitzel.
Ordinarily, Prayer would have a 'primary' sized meal, but on this occasion, nobody had remembered to deliver the meals to those in the isolation room, until the only ones left were larger portions meant for men.
When Prayer began to choke, and with the door handles disabled, Sharon couldn't get out for help.
Ben-Canaan tried to assist but couldn't, and eventually went out the window to seek help from others.
They came - also through the window - and tried. But nobody could save Prayer.
Sharon had to watch her youngest child die.
'We would rather suffer the wrong when false accusations are made than enter into a public debate which only fuels the sensationalism that the media seeks.'
So says Gloriavale on its website: the community has a long-held and deep antipathy towards the media.
We first became aware of Prayer Ready's death in September last year, alerted by former members of the community who were not only grieving, they were deeply troubled by what they were hearing of the circumstances in which she died.
And so began a lengthy battle to tell her story.
We were initially prevented from reporting what happened when Gloriavale went to court asking for an interim suppression order on all the details.
At one point we were accused of unfairly pursuing Gloriavale.
Gloriavale is an intriguing community. But were we unfairly making it a target?
We had many discussions about this, to be sure Gloriavale's concerns about media and sensationalism weren't justified, and there was a clear analogy we kept coming back to in considering whether this story was in the public interest: what if the situation had occurred somewhere else, say, a boarding school? If, say, a student had died while in an isolation-type room where the door handles had been disabled? Would that have been news?
Well, yes. It would have raised health and safety concerns, and of course it would have been reported. The basic facts would warrant examination wherever they occurred, including at Gloriavale.
Yet there is one key, clear addition to those basic facts which makes it all the more concerning that this happened where it did.
And that is: control. The control the leaders of Gloriavale have over their flock.
Circuit has been told by several sources that the common practice of removal or disabling of door handles is at the behest of leaders. It's their decision, their solution.
Sharon Ready's sister Polly Withington is matter-of-fact about what that means.
'The sad thing about Gloriavale and the people in there, because there are some lovely people in there, is they have no choice. You don't have a choice in there, you do what you're told, when you're told to do it, and that is really sad.'
And there's an extension to the concept of control that also makes this case all the more concerning: manipulation.
Image: TOBY LONGBOTTOM
Coroner Marcus Elliott held an inquiry into what happened to Prayer, but decided against an inquest, finding in February this year that Prayer's death was a tragic accident, and the fact that the door was disabled did not contribute to her death in any way.
(It's interesting to note that in spite of this finding, Gloriavale has told the Coroner it will discontinue the practice).
In his findings Coroner Elliott says he posed questions to Prayer's family and Gloriavale - and they were answered.
'I went to Gloriavale and spoke to Prayer's family and members of the Gloriavale community. While I was there I viewed the room in which Prayer died. I therefore have all of the evidence necessary to make findings about the issues. There is no basis to doubt any of the information which has been given to me by any witness in this case. There are no credibility issues to resolve. No one has refused to answer any question from the Police or from me'.
So if there was nothing to hide, why did Gloriavale go to the lengths it did to have this story suppressed by the courts?
And further, to seemingly try to influence members of Sharon's family on the outside, to stop cooperating with us.
Circuit has heard a phone conversation between Sharon's husband Clem Ready and a member of the family on the outside, in which Ready accuses us of wanting to report the circumstances of Prayer's death, 'so there's a salivating viewing audience waiting for the next juicy bit, you know? As far as we're concerned it's all about a frenzy, creating an appetite for news about Gloriavale, you know just hammering us, because it's sensation there and it just helps them to get viewers glued to their screen'.
For the record, actually we simply wanted to ask questions that we believed deserved answers.
But what Clem Ready goes on to say is illuminating, when it's put to him that there should be accountability for the fact that door handles had been disabled.
'I think that process has already taken place, I think that's happened. Okay, I can tell you point blank that the person who did that will never do it again. Because I was spoken to by [leaders] Hopeful (Christian) and Fervent (Stedfast) and they said to me that they absolutely disapproved of that and it was a stupid thing to do and it won't happen again. So in other words there has been accountability and recognition that that wasn't a wise thing to do. So now it won't happen at all in the community. So to me that's a closed issue, it's over. There's no point scrapping about it any more.'
Let's be clear: Clem Ready believes the 'accountability' for that 'stupid' act has already occurred.
Image: TOBY LONGBOTTOM
We don't know Sharon Ready, but we have a sense of her from her voice - her friendly, almost girlish tone, how her conversation is sprinkled with laughter. Says her sister Polly, 'She's got this lovely little giggle that bubbles'.
It's true, she does. And when she's serious, making a point, she is strong. Her words are firm, she's determined.
Especially when she speaks of the death of her daughter Prayer.
Her family members on the outside, too, are resolute in their support of their sister, no matter the separation, and with the acknowledgement that their speaking out will likely mean they're prevented from communicating with Sharon ever again.
And so little sister Ruth hopes, somehow, Sharon might get to read her words.
'I love you so much, and you know it. And I know you love me too. And I know you love your brothers and sisters, and I know that you know that our father is in heaven…You are the most honest and Christian person I know and I look up to you, and as Polly said, when we left there, we were in awe of you. God has blessed us in having a sister like you. Love you so much' - Ruth Green.
* The Circuit team produces video-led, longform journalism for Stuff.