Researcher calls out 'culture of denial' over historical child abuse and racism

Saturday, 2 November 2019

Oliver Sutherland - speaking out about decades of abuse of children in care

For decades, Dr Oliver Sutherland painstakingly compiled evidence of horrific abuse at the social welfare homes, borstals, police cells and prison cells where some of our most vulnerable children were incarcerated.

His extraordinary archive included every scrap of paper, and every letter to every cabinet minister where the abuse was detailed.

Sutherland finally got to lay bare his years of research during hearings at the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care in Auckland last week.

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The Royal Commission of Inquiry is listening to experts and people who were in care to understand abuse in state care and faith-based institutions

When he finished speaking the applause that started as clapping erupted into a standing ovation.

Sutherland said it was a cathartic experience to finally speak before the Royal Commission.

'I felt pretty humbled by it. I was just glad we'd hung in there for all those years.'

Trained as an entomologist, Sutherland spent the years from 1970 to 1986 documenting case studies of the children and young people, who were disproportionately Māori, who experienced abuse while in care.

Some of his evidence was difficult to hear.

The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care has begun hearing evidence

He told the Commission about documenting evidence back then of kids being locked into small cells for 23 hours a day, young girls forcibly given vaginal checks, strip searches, beatings by staff, and fight club-type matches as punishment.

Boys were held in adult remand centres, forced to mix and shower with men.

One child had an electric helmet attached to his penis to shock him into stopping his bed wetting. At the notorious Lake Alice facility, kids were given ECT or shock therapy as punishment by medical personnel.

This included children being punished through solitary confinement, electro-shock treatment, and caning.

Some of those listening to his two hour long testimony were the victims of the abuse he detailed.

At the end of his two-hour long testimony, Sutherland received a standing ovation from the public gallery, some of whom had been personally affected by the abuse.

Sutherland said what was most important for him was an opportunity to be heard.

'I don't know want survivors want, they may want redress, they may want perpetrators to be charged – for me, I just appreciate the fact we've got the Royal Commission and can stand up and tell these stories and have them listened to.'

Sutherland's research began after he joined the Nelson Māori Committee as secretary in 1970, at the behest of friend and Māori activist John Hippolite.

Sutherland had close personal connections to Ngati Koata and other iwi, with his father Ivan having been a cultural anthropologist and and enthusiastic advocate for Māori self-determination.

Children's Minister Tracey Martin and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announcing details of the inquiry into state abuse.

Schooled as a boarder at Nelson College, Sutherland had arrived back in Nelson in 1969 after completing his post-doctoral study at the University of California (Berkeley).

Trained as an entomologist, he spent the next thirty years working as a research scientist in Nelson at the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research.

After getting involved in the Nelson Māori Committee, he had begun hearing stories about the abuses going on within the justice and social welfare institutions.

'I was a sympathetic voice and sympathetic ear to what was going on, and I didn't mind standing up and speaking out.'

Sutherland said he was spurred on to focus on his research following a race relations council conference in 1972.

'I was there from the Nelson race relations group, and the pakeha who were there – sympathetic liberals like me – were challenged by the activist Māori and Pacific groups.

'They stood up and said they didn't wanted us joining their organisations and just tagging along, they wanted us to take responsibility as Pakeha for the racism of the system we were concerned about – their challenge to us was to work for change in Pakeha society.'

Sutherland said while Pakeha children also suffered similar abuse while in custody, there had been a 'hugely disproportionate' number of Māori children involved – about 41 per cent of the 116,595 children who went through the courts from 1967 to 1976.

'There was a tremendous disparity in the figures, but it was also the culture of those places. It was a Pakeha way of dealing with children or families that got into trouble.

'It was punitive and not necessarily a way in which Māori might have dealt with those issues – that was what was racist about it.'

Sutherland said he was grateful to the Government for finally establishing the Royal Commission into the matter.

'It didn't matter if it was the Kirk government, then the Muldoon government, then some other government, it didn't matter whether the ministers of Justice or Social Welfare were Labour or National, they had a culture of denial.

'I hope what I say validates [the victim's] stories, that they will be believed and someone will say sorry – because that's never happened.'