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Many survivors Royal Commission into Abuse in Care – The lengthy report is due to be published this month.
Rebecca’s* brother had intellectual disabilities and was sent to live in Maryland School at age 7—one of many siblings in a large Catholic family.
A pastor had told her mother that this was a safe place for him to live and learn, but that couldn’t be more wrong.
Rebecca said of the school: “There was so much hype about it, it’s an amazing school, an amazing group of fraternity guys who are all trained to work with intellectually and physically disabled kids.”
“They are an order that we don’t have in New Zealand other than Maryland, so it’s very new to us. He was picked because he met the criteria for special needs.”
But her brother remained illiterate and often returned home during school holidays without clothes, with rotten teeth and poor hygiene.
Rebecca was a child at the time, a year younger than her brother – and it was not until later, as an adult, that she learned that her brother had been raped multiple times.
“I was furious because he had no choice. It was physically taking a toll on him and little boys, 7 or 8 years old, couldn’t say no, they didn’t know what was happening and they were being violated in this way.”
Maryland was a den of abuse – of the 37 brothers who served in the Christchurch mission, 21 were charged – 19 of them specifically accused of child sexual abuse.
Rebecca’s brother returned home at 18 – when her mother realised that, despite paying for his education, he was put to work in a laundry and remained illiterate – but they had no idea he was being abused.
He ended up in a community home for the disabled, where he worked as a stable boy.
She said: “He was a lovely boy who had a wonderful sense of humour in his later years.”
Rebecca was one of the witnesses at the Royal Commission into Care Abuse, with her brother dying in 2022 before she appeared at the hearings.
He is 65 years old and has rectal cancer caused by HPV.
“It led to his death. When I stood up at the royal commission he was already dead and they said it was a result of what had happened to him.”
Rebecca said she was angry her brother never got justice for what happened to him and was labelled a sexual deviant for behaviours he learnt from the abuse.
She said he experienced terrible physical pain but he never talked about it.
“We never thought, ‘Oh my god, he could have HPV,’ we just didn’t expect it, and that’s what happened. He has a colostomy, but he hasn’t been able to cope very well, and his butt has basically rotted away.”
She said the report released this month may be difficult to read, but people must pay attention.
“The public can’t just sit back and say, just because it’s not your agency or your place, it’s none of my business. You have to listen, you have to follow up.”
Rebecca said she was concerned that boot camps for young offenders could cause greater harm to people who need to know they are valued.
“I’m concerned that we haven’t learned our lesson. Boot camps and charter schools don’t work.”
She said she and her siblings feel guilty about what happened to their brother — even though they were just children and teenagers when he was taken into care.
They remember finding it hard to adjust when their brother came home for the holidays – a heavy burden for many families whose loved ones were abused in care.
She said: “He had a tantrum when he got home, but he calmed down after about a week and became very well-behaved and cute.”
“Then, two days before he was due to go back, he’d be hysterical. And of course, we’d just be like, ‘Oh my god, can’t wait until he goes back’.”
Nearly 3000 survivors registered with the royal commission, but it is estimated that more than 250,000 people may have suffered abuse at the hands of state and religious institutions between 1950 and 2019.
* Name has been changed
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