'Dreadful' ACC loophole preventing N.Z. child sexual abuse victims
from qualifying for weekly compensation
IMOGEN WELLS, 1 NEWS TONIGHT REPORTER
An ACC loophole is preventing victims of child sexual abuse from qualifying for weekly compensation.
Under ACC, a person is entitled to ‘Loss of Potential Earnings’ cover for personal injuries sustained before the age of 18 prohibiting or hindering work.
However the Accident Compensation Act 2001 states a person’s mental injury is deemed to occur on the date they first ‘received treatment for your mental injury’.
It means that unless a child comes forward before they turn 18, they are ineligible for the LOPE payments, as the abuse technically happened when they first asked for help as an adult.
1 NEWS has spoken to a woman struggling to establish her claim as she was in her 30s when she started seeking help. She told 1 NEWS the legislation made her feel it was her own fault for not coming forward sooner.
“I felt that I was being blamed as a child, that it was my fault for not seeking help even though I did try. I did try. I had tried to seek help from my parents, from a teacher, but even as a teenager my mother was always with me. I couldn’t tell the doctor out of fear.”
It can take child victims years to acknowledge their abuse, she said, but some are also scared to speak up at the time. “Fear of not being believed, fear of being hurt again, fear of nothing being done and it just keeps happening.”
John Miller, a lawyer specialising in ACC, called the legislation "dreadful", hindering victims instead of helping them. “If you're sexually abused as a child sometimes you can't complain. Sometimes it’ll be in their 20s or 30s before they do. They (ACC) say ‘no, it happened when you were 35 legally’. It’s absolute nonsense.”
He said there is no justification for the legislation’s loophole.
“The whole of ACC for victims is re-victimisation. Sexual abuse victims, particularly children, are treated abominably.”
ACC responded to 1 NEWS’ questions about the legislation via statement and said, "We do offer fully-funded support and treatment for survivors of sexual abuse or assault."
"This support is available for survivors of all ages and people can seek help from us at any time following the incident. Even before having their claim assessed for cover, survivors can access fully-funded therapy and whānau support. For adult survivors (or child survivors once they reach adulthood) other entitlements may include weekly compensation for time off work."
The Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment (MBIE) is responsible for ACC’s legislation and said the system is designed to help people recover from injuries and getting them back to work as soon as possible.
However, for some victims, their abuse is so severe, work is not an option.
“I got my first job as a teenager which involved working around men. I couldn’t cope, I lasted days. As I got older I tried several different jobs and it didn’t work out. I couldn’t cope. I only had a few hours twice a week and I couldn’t even cope with that. It was horrendous for me,” an adult survivor told 1 NEWS.
The victim, who wished to remain anonymous, wants the legislation to be amended so that victims aren’t made to feel responsible for not coming forward sooner.
“I want it changed. If not to help me, to help the multitude of children that are being abused. It’s having a profound affect on their adult life and I want it to change for them.”
For most survivors, it is pretty easy to establish the approximate time of the abuse. This is just a way for ACC to keep their budget down and the government ought to be ashamed.
Child sex offenders can't be cured – only taught not to act on their feelings, says criminologist who worked on Milly Dowler case
The scourge of child sexual abuse will never go away until we help offenders manage their thoughts and feelings for children, a leading criminologist in the field has explained.
By Susie Beever
Yorkshire Post
Dr Graham Hill is a consultant criminologist who retired from policing to work with child sex offenders and has been involved in high-profile cases such as the re-opening of the Madeleine McCann investigation and the murder of Milly Dowler.
Speaking to The Yorkshire Post, Dr Hill described how offenders who have a sexual interest in children will never be able to repress their feelings, and instead must be taught to manage them if society is to solve the issue of child sexual exploitation and abuse.
Currently a research fellow at the University of Leeds but based from south London, Dr Hill also said treatment programmes for these offenders were "inherently flawed" as they are often run as group meetings, which are less effective as criminals will be less inclined to share their thoughts in front of others.
Criminologist Dr Graham Hill
"When I was a detective in the police force 20 years ago, nobody really wanted to be involved in CSE investigations," Dr Hill explained.
"Attitudes generally have changed in the past 10 years in the wake of the Jimmy Saville scandal and the Rotherham scandal.
"CSE isn’t just about what we used to think of as middle aged men interested in children anymore. It’s part of wider scale operations such as county lines and organised crime."
"The world in general is more enlightened and we’ve broken down a lot of barriers and certain things have become more acceptable which weren't acceptable before. Obviously, one thing which will never be acceptable in any society is the sexual abuse of children. But the more people are informed about this issue, the more people will be protected. You can’t intervene in something you don’t understand."
Dr Hill added: "Sex offender treatment programmes are inherently flawed, because most of them are run as groups in prisons or with probation services. They tend not to have an impact on offenders because they’re in front of other offenders.
"Treatment programmes which are one-to-one do work, but the problem with these is that they’re really expensive. The prisons can’t afford them, so the offenders themselves have to pay for them. The programmes give people strategies to help offenders manage their thoughts and feelings.
"You can’t cure someone with a sexual interest in children, only help them to contain and manage it."
Dr Hill has an illustrious career working to solve serious crimes, including the M25 serial rapist Antoni Imiela and London's "Night Stalker" Delroy Grant. He also led the investigation into Craig Harman, whose conviction in 2004 for the manslaughter of a lorry driver was the first in the world to use familial DNA.
Dr Hill's comments come as an Independent Inquiry into organised networks of child sexual abuse like that in Rotherham heard this week how the problem is still "under-reported" in England and Wales.
Police and media are still bending over backward trying not to blame Pakistani, Muslim men. Until they stop that #PCMadness, it will always be underreported and many more young British girls will be systematically raped and trafficked.
The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) heard from leading counsel Henrietta Hill QC that the "big picture" was that "many thousands of children are sexually exploited each year" by gangs who groom and manipulate them.
Meanwhile, a 57-year-old man from Merseyside was jailed this week after detectives in Yorkshire posed as a 12-year-old girl online and arranged to meet him in Barnsley where he was arrested.
James Buntain had been engaging online with other children and was also convicted at Sheffield Crown Court for messages sent to an unidentified, but presumed, child victim.
Dr Hill added: "The thing about people who develop a sexual interest in children is they see children as sexual beings. It’s ingrained in them and there’s nothing they can do about it, it’s a case of lifelong management so that you never act upon it. This is why so many sex offenders take their own lives.
"I’m not trying to make anyone feel sorry for them, but that is what they have to carry."
How can you see a child as a sexual being? It's like anorexia, skin-covered bones look like fat. It is madness!
On the other hand, one could argue that Dr Hill has no knowledge or experience with spirituality. Sin is progressive and one sin often leads to another. Simple adult pornography can deteriorate into younger and younger victims and more and more violent rapes. In this scenario, paedos are attracted to children, not because they are sexy, but because they are innocent. Their innocence reminds evil men of God, and they want only to destroy that innocence.
While this is a horrifying view to have, there is actually hope as evil can be cast out of those who so desire. I know; I have seen it happen!
My nightmare': N.Z. abuse survivor shares 'horror movie' childhood
Star News Christchurch
A man who was sexually abused as a child in faith-based and state care institutions says the Government needs to own up to what happened to him and his peers, some of whom "didn't make it".
Kerry Johnson - not his real name - was assessed as having an intellectual disability as a child and, also due to "behavioural problems" at school, was enrolled at Marylands School in Christchurch, run by the Australian Catholic Order of St John of God (SJOG).
Oh, No! St John of God! The worst order of many sick and horrid orders in the Catholic church.
He was there from January 1980 to February 1981, during which time he was seriously sexually abused by two of the staff members, and experienced physical and psychological abuse from the staff and other boys.
But in his affidavit to the ongoing Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquiry, Johnson, 48, revealed how he was also sexually abused aged 5 at school, and his "behavioural issues" came from acting out.
"It's hard to talk about this but I just want to world to know that I was taken away from my mother and stuck into an environment where they raped me and made me do things to him," Johnson said.
The commission is investigating abuse in state and faith-based care between 1950 and 1999 and is currently hearing the experiences of survivors in seeking redress, such as compensation, counselling or an apology.
Speaking from prison via AVL, Johnson said he was taken out of his mother's care by Social Welfare and placed in Marylands aged 7 due to being an "out of control kid".
After his time at Marylands, he was taken to Campbell Park School in North Otago in March, 1981, where he remained for 6 years.
His time there was "my nightmare", he said. "They didn't just rape you, they beat the living daylight out of you."
He spoke of being kicked, hit and beaten with planks of wood, and made to stand outside naked in the cold.
He spoke of having to comfort boys, "fresh" ones, who'd just been raped by staff. "I could hear boys screaming at night while they were being sexually abused."
Some of those friends didn't make it. "They had no one. I still have nightmares [about finding them]."
He started to hurt himself around this time, and had trouble sleeping, and wetting the bed as he was "too scared" to go to the bathroom in the night.
He wasn't under care of social welfare at this time, but near the end of Campbell Park he became a ward of the state. He also started to become violent, getting in fights with other boys.
In 1987 he was admitted to Stanmore Road, a boys' home in Christchurch.
"When I first got there, I attacked the first boy I saw. I beat him up, then they stuck me in the secure unit. I spent most of my life, most of my time in the secure unit, because I was a violent boy, I was attacking every person, even staff. I was attacking them."
Asked why by his counsel Sonja Cooper, Johnson responded: "Because I didn't want anyone to touch me no more."
He also spent short periods of time at Kingslea Boys' Home, and Templeton Hospital and Sunnyside Hospital.
The impacts of the abuse had been wide-ranging. "It's been a hard life for me. They took my childhood away from me. I've been in and out of jail since then. That's all I've known. That's all my life has been. I've lived a gang life.
"I used to run with gangs because I thought that was my family. I trusted them more than anything else… I became a criminal because that's all I've known. I didn't know what wrongs a right was, I just did what I had to do to survive."
He told the commission since his teenage years the longest stint he's had out of jail has been one year.
In 2004 he got in touch with Sonja Cooper at Cooper Legal, and thus begun his process of making claims against the Ministry of Social Development, Ministry of Education, and SJOG.
In 2007 he received a settlement of $28,500 from SJOG, and a top up a little over 10 years later of another $25,000, to balance it with other claims being made against the order.
He received $5000 from MSD, which he was advised not to take, but he accepted as he "wanted it to be over".
He also received a letter of apology from then-chief executive Brendan Boyle.
But 16 years after starting his claim for the abuse at Campbell Park, Johnson is still fighting for recognition from the Ministry of Education.
"I can't understand why my claim still hasn't ended, after all that time. My experiences in care, and the journey I have had to take to resolve my claims, have been a nightmare.
"I feel like my life is stuffed and that I'm stuck in a horror movie that will never end. It feels like the Government just wants to sweep this all under the carpet and that it doesn't want to hear any of it.
"It is hard for me to confront all this. Even so, I am providing this evidence because I know that I need to speak up for myself, and for my mates who didn't make it.
"It's time that the Government finally owned up to what happened to us while we were in care. There isn't any chance of me being able to move on and put this all behind me, until that happens."
Cooper asked Johnson if any of the processes of support and rehabilitation had helped him to recognise his Māori identity. "Not at all," he said.
"I never learned my whakapapa. I wish I did, so I could understand my Māori side. When I get out this time my aim is to go see my father, I want him to teach me my whakapapa."
Whakapapa - hope it isn't what it sounds like! Whakapapa is a taxonomic framework that links all animate and inanimate, known and unknown phenomena in the terrestrial and spiritual worlds. ... Whakapapa is the core of traditional mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge). Whakapapa means genealogy. Wikipedia
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