Abuse in Care: Oranga Tamariki removes employee from role with children

Wednesday, 24 August 2022

State abuse survivor Keith Wiffin talks about what he wants to see from the latest round of hearings by the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care, which focus on government agency responses. (First published August 2022.)

Oranga Tamariki removed a staff member from a child-facing role the same day that serious allegations about their behaviour surfaced at the Royal Commission of Inquiry.

Ministry chief executive Chappie Te Kani made the admission on Wednesday after he and colleague Nicolette Dickson were questioned about the employment of “Person A”.

Officials from the Ministry of Social Development had originally faced questions about Person A more than a week earlier, on the first day of the Institutional Response Hearings.

Before Oranga Tamariki was established in 2017, state care was handled by Child Youth and Family which sat inside the MSD.

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Person A had been employed by the predecessors to Oranga Tamariki but had resigned in 2005 before rejoining the organisation in 2009.

Since then, commission counsel assisting Anne Toohey said the person had worked for Child, Youth and Family and then moved into Oranga Tamariki when it was established in 2017.

In questioning, Toohey described a historic allegation made against Person A in the 1990s.

“The allegation is that after the child had been returned to secure after absconding, which means escaping from the residence, Person A had entered his cell to give him his inhaler and had punched him in the head just above the eye.”

Person A had denied the allegation and there were no other witnesses, Toohey said.

She went on to say the allegation had failed to be substantiated, Person A was cleared and a document had advised that no “residual suspicion” be attached.

Toohey asked why the allegation was not considered when Person A was re-employed in 2009. Dickson was unable to answer.

At one point, Toohey revealed a law firm acting for claimants had previously told MSD about a number of current staff facing allegations of abuse.

Oranga Tamariki chief executive Chappie Te Kani spent his final day on the stand at the Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquiry on Wednesday.

She pointed to a document containing the names of those staff, which included Person A.

“The allegations are that Person A would set up initiation fights and stompings, make boys go over the hill to be beaten, he would beat up boys when they were doing physical training,” said Toohey.

“Kick them when they were on the ground, make boys play rugby against him as an excuse to beat them so he could kick, punch and clothesline boys.

“He would set up fights between boys and give the boys extra treats, cigarettes and food if they stomped or blanketed other boys.”

Following further questions, Toohey asked how it was that the allegations made to MSD failed to feature when the person was re-employed in 2009. Te Kani said he was unable to answer.

Toohey produced another document, revealing that after Cooper Legal had approached MSD, the ministry had started to receive a series of further historic claims against Person A.

She said there were effectively 24 allegations of physical abuse and two of other abuse that had been discounted.

MSD had accepted that between three and four claims had happened and had “paid out” a total of 18 claims.

“Just to be fair, when they said they accepted what happened, obviously that is not to a criminal standard,” said Toohey.

Dickson said Oranga Tamariki had received information about 10 allegations against Person A in 2019 and a further one in 2020.

Toohey then put to Dickson that Oranga Tamariki had satisfied itself that there were no safety concerns in relation to Person A having contact with children in their day job.

“I would just want to qualify that, we satisfied ourselves to the extent that we could because there were limitations on being able to address the allegations of the staff member which meant we couldn’t in the way that we would normally address fully with the staff member and discuss the extent of the safety concerns with them,” replied Dickson.

Toohey replied noting that it had been three years since Oranga Tamariki was notified of the information, and asked if the issue was some form of an employment process.

Te Kani jumped in saying he could answer that question, because Person A was no longer in a role that was interacting with children.

After further questioning, Te Kani admitted the person had been taken away from a child-facing role last Monday.

“This issue was brought to my attention relatively late in the process which is unsatisfactory,” Te Kani said.

“At the point in time it was brought to my attention, it was very clear to me on the basis of the information that I had read that, actually, we had to put the safety of the tamariki first given the nature of the allegations whilst we work through that process.

“Bearing in mind, out of respect to the process we could only put one allegation to the person given the number of allegations,” he said.

Wednesday marked Oranga Tamariki’s final day on the royal commission stand. On Thursday, officials from the Department of Corrections will appear in the morning, followed by staff from the Office of the Children’s Commissoner.