Abuse in NZ State Care - The Witness Testimony of Joanna Oldham
"The Reverend made me an alter girl after the first time he abused me in his home. As an alter girl, I had to go early to the church on Sundays to help him put on his robes. He used this as an opportunity to sexually abuse me again.
The abuse happened only once in the church, and it happened after the third time that he had abused me in his home. The next time he asked me to come in early, I ran away from my home to avoid having to go. I began running away often, and I never went back to that church."
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The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care is currently holding its first ever Pacific Investigation hearing into abuse in care of Pacific people in this country. The enquiry is looking at abuse of Pacific people in both state and faith-based institutions between 1950 and 1999.
The name of this enquiry is Tulou - Our Pacific Voices: Tatala e Pulonga', at the Fale o Samoain Māngere and has been open to the public from Monday 19th through to the 30th July 2021. The scope of the hearing can be read here
Joanna Oldham shares her witness testimony on Day three of the enquiry.
This statement has been edited and condensed for length.
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INTRODUCTION
My full name is Joanna Catherine Helen Oldham. I was known as Catherine Oldham while I was in care. I was born in 1974 in Auckland. I did not know what my name was until I was about 15 years old and received my birth certificate. Throughout my childhood I was called Catherine. In my birth certificate I found out that my first name was Joanna, and as an adult I have chosen to go by Joanna.
My father is Pakeha, and my mother is Tongan. I was not aware of my mother's ethnicity while growing up, as I lived with my father, who told me different things about who my mother was. When I was in care, Social Welfare never seemed to be aware of my heritage or culture.
I have since found out that my mother and grandmother migrated out from Tonga when my mother was nine years old. My grandmother had separated from her husband in Tonga and had brought my mother here for a new life. They lived in Auckland and my grandmother remarried. I understand that my mother experienced her own trauma during her childhood.
My parents were married for a few years, having both myself, and my older sister. They separated shortly after I was born, and from what I have learned from my family, my sister and I remained with our mother and grandmother for a few years, and they tried to keep us away from our father. Eventually my father found us, and he grabbed my sister and me from our grandmother's garden. We always understood ourselves to have been kidnapped. My father took us to Christchurch and moved often so we could not be found. My records show that my father won custody of us through the courts. After a few years, my mother gave up looking for us and she moved to Australia where she started a new life and had another family.
I remember as a child not knowing what my culture or ethnicity was, or where I came from. I just knew that whatever I was, I was different, and that whatever I was, was wrong. My father, grandmother, and the whole side of my Pakeha family was extremely racist toward Maori and Pacifica people, including me and my sister.
I bore the brunt of their racism as my sister was fairer and took after the European part of my family. I looked a lot like my mother.
My records clearly show this racism throughout the years. When I was 10 years old, I complained to my social worker about my father's new partner calling me a "black bitch". I then went on to tell the social worker that all the Pakeha members of my family called me that. There are many other records of the racism in my home. My memory of the experience was horrible. I remember my grandmother at family gatherings sending me out to eat on my own. I can remember that no one in my family seemed to like me, and they all made it clear that this was because I was brown.
I cannot remember much from before I was five, but I know from at least the age of five onwards, my childhood was not normal. My father was a big-time drug dealer, and I remember police raids on our house most weeks. My father taught us to fight with the police when they came. My father was in and out of jail, and my grandmother would care for us when that happened.
I have memories of spending the nights at the police station when dad would be arrested, before my grandmother came to collect us in the morning.
When I was living with my father, I remember that he could be very violent to me and my sister, and on more than one occasion he punched me in the head. When I was 11 years old and in care, he was charged with murder. He was eventually acquitted three years later. The day after my father was charged with murder, I was made a State Ward.
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FAITH BASED ABUSE
My grandmother was involved with the Holy Trinity Church. When I was about eight or nine years old my sister and I spent an extended period of time with my grandmother while my father was in jail. At this time, my grandmother decided that we had to join the church too. I remember that we were the only brown faces at the church.
At the Church I was sexually abused by Reverend Ray Oppenheim. The first time it happened was at a Church-run children's BBQ at Easter, after the service. The abuse happened three more times in his home. Each time it happened exactly the same way.
The Reverend made me an alter girl after the first time he abused me in his home. As an alter girl, I had to go early to the church on Sundays to help him put on his robes. He used this as an opportunity to sexually abuse me again. The abuse happened only once in the church, and it happened after the third time that he had abused me in his home. The next time he asked me to come in early, I ran away from my home to avoid having to go. I began running away often, and I never went back to that church.
During and after the abuse by Reverend Oppenheim, I started having tantrums at home. This was during a period when my father was in prison, and my grandmother and I were starting to struggle, because she could not understand me. My grandmother called Social Welfare in early 1984, when I was nine years old, to seek help with my behaviour.
I had told my grandmother and others what had happened with Reverend Oppenheim. My grandmother was devoutly Christian and was confused and uncomfortable with it, and chose not to do anything.
I now know that an uncle of mine spoke with someone at the church just after the abuse stopped. This person assured my uncle that the church knew about Reverend Oppenheim's actions, and that it was being dealt with. I was never told anything about that, and from my end, I grew so much anger inside of me because I knew that people knew, and it seemed like they did not do anything about it. During the time I was being abused by Ray Oppenheim, Social Welfare was notified about my escalating behaviour.
On 25 January 1984, a social worker called Reverend Oppenheim, informing him of Reverend Glassey's request for Social Welfare involvement with our family. Reverend Oppenheim advised the social worker that he and Bernard Richards from the Anglican Social Services were working with my family and they would rather not have Social Welfare involved. The social worker recommended no further action.
Social Welfare made no further effort to check in on me or my family, outside of calling my sexual abuser, and discontinuing any investigation based solely on my sexual abuser's advice. I remember that I told a person who I think was a social worker, about the sexual abuse by Ray Oppenheim. My memory is that as a result of my disclosure, I taken out of my home and placed in a children's home in Ford MilIton.
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FORD MILLTON CHILDREN'S HOME
I remember that the Ford Millton Home was very isolated. It was a big old house in the middle of nowhere. There, I suffered abuse by a woman in charge there. She would get hold of my hair and strap me with her belt across my arms and legs. She would do this for minor things like not holding my knife and fork correctly at the dinner table. I cannot pick what was worse out there, the complete isolation or the physical abuse. Eventually I decided that I hated it too much there, and I ran away. I did not get far as it was so far from anywhere.
I was sent home to live with my father in December 1984 when he got out of prison. My father called Social Welfare to complain that I was running away and staying out overnight with street kids. My father told Social Welfare that he would use his 'vigilante' friends to catch me.
My father had a physical disability, and I was able to run away from him easily. Over the years when I was placed back with my father by Social Welfare, he would regularly enlist male friends of his to live at our home to physically discipline and restrain me when I would try to run away. More than one of these friends who stayed with us sexually abused me. I remember one who would often sneak into my bedroom and rape me.
Later records show that Social Welfare was aware of my father bringing these men into the home, for the purpose of disciplining me and restraining me. However no questions were ever asked about the appropriateness of this practice, despite me telling my social worker in early 1985 that my father's friends were acquaintances of his from prison, who I described as 'creeps', and who I said would 'manhandle' me. I later told my counselor of being punched in the head by one of these men, while my father was out. Nothing was done.
A complaint was laid in the Family Court that I was a child not under proper control. I was then taken by the police to Kingslea and placed in its Secure Unit. I was 10 years old.
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KINGSLEA
Despite only being 10 years old, on arrival to Kingslea I was made to have an STI check and a pregnancy test. A report from my residential social worker, a few weeks after my admission to Kingslea noted she believed I was "ill placed at in Kingslea as [Kingslea] was by inference forcing a ten-year-old girl to act, feel and think beyond her years."
A few days after my admission I was placed at a Family Home. I ran from the Home within an hour or two and was caught and taken back to Kingslea and placed back in Secure. For the following 6 weeks, until my discharge on 22 April 1985, I spent most of my time in the Secure Unit, including my eleventh birthday. Records show that one of the reasons for this extended placement in Secure was to protect me from the older girls at Kingslea, as I was so young.
I remember my cell in Secure was concrete and there was a concrete slab for a bed, with a mattress on it. There was a stainless-steel table and a toilet. I would generally be served my meals in the cell. I do not even remember the other girls from those first admissions, as I barely ever saw any of them. I was kept on my own. The isolation made me want to die. I would be so angry when I woke up the next morning still alive. Days felt like they turned into months. I did not know what was happening and thought it was all my fault that I was in there. I forgot how to be social, or how to talk to people.
While I was in Secure, I set fire to my cell several times, just to get attention. In my records, when a staff member asked what would have happened had staff not saved me from one of the fires, I am recorded to have replied "it would have been better than waking up in my cell again". I told staff I felt trapped in Secure, and no one listened to me, and that I had to light the fire to be heard.
It is indescribable the trauma of being locked up in a concrete cell at that age and having no one to talk to, or even look at. I would scream, and cry, and howl in my cell in Secure, and staff would ignore me
On one occasion, I passed by the staff office and heard the girl from the cell next to me on an intercom. I was embarrassed as I would often talk to myself while I was in my cell, and I had not known that the staff were listening to us. It also made me extremely angry to know that they heard all our distress, and I remember thinking these people are listening to us, but they won't help us.
I remember that by the time I came out of Secure that first time, I was unstoppable. It was like they had created a little monster. After that I ran to the streets any chance I got. I spent the following 5 years in and out of Kingslea. During each placement I spent most of my time in Secure.
I was also kept in Secure for multiple weeks in a row on several other occasions. I became extremely good at escaping. Over the five years that I was in care, I ran hundreds of times. My records show that I would run nearly weekly. I was the first child to escape from a Secure cell. I had friends on the outside help break me out. I would be restrained at least once a week when I was at Kingslea. Some staff would be intentionally violent during the restraints. I remember if I ran away on certain staff members' shifts, they would make a point of punching me during restraints as punishment.
Every time I was placed in Secure, which occurred every time I ran away or misbehaved, I was strip-searched. This started from when I was ten years old and continued throughout all my admissions to Kingslea. I remember the strip searches would be conducted by two or three female staff members, and that I would be made to get completely naked and hand over my clothes. When I was very young, I would then be handed a nightie and sent to Secure in just the nightie. When I was older, I had clothes issued, and would be given those clothes to wear in Secure. The strip searches were degrading and made me feel as though I was somehow dirty. The searches also brought up memories of the sexual abuse I had suffered, and they felt like a continuation of that sexual abuse.
ALLENDALE
I was twice sent to Allendale Girls' Home in Auckland, during the period of time that I was going in and out of Kingslea. The first time I was sent to Allendale was in late 1985, when I was 11 years old. The second time was in 1987 when I was 13. I continued to run while at Allendale, and as a result, I would be caught and kept in Secure. The experience of Secure in Allendale was much the same as Kingslea. I was so damaged at this stage that I could not stop running, and it had become the only way I knew how to survive. When I ran from both Allendale and Kingslea, I would live for extended periods on the streets until I got caught. This would be for a days or weeks at a time.
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GLENROY HOME PLACEMENT
Throughout 1988 I was placed on multiple occasions by Social Welfare with a Family Home and Social Welfare would put me there on leave from Kingslea, and eventually placed me there with the intention of it being a long-term placement. However, I ran away from this Home as well, and the placement broke down.
I remember that the foster mother was aggressive, domineering, and violent towards her husband and son. She was aggressive and verbally abusive towards me, but never violent. Both the foster father, and the foster parents' son raped me at this placement. I do not think the son and father knew that they were both doing the same thing to me. The son was a few years older than me, and he snuck into my room on four occasions where he raped me. The foster father raped me twice in the sleepout. I blamed myself for what was happening, and thought I was doing something to cause this to keep happening to me.
At one stage during my time in care, when I had been returned to my father, and then abused, I moved myself out of my father's home, and into the home of a friend's mother, Social Welfare eventually approved this home as a foster placement, despite her husband having been charged with sexual abuse against children. I do not recall suffering any sexual abuse from him but this shows the ongoing failings of Social Welfare regarding my care.
AUSTRALIA - MOTHER
In 1989, four years after being taken into care, Social Welfare tried placing me with my mother in Australia. I had not seen my mother since I was a small child and had no memories of her at this stage. I remember that there was an FGC which my mother flew over to attend, and that I was then told I was going with her to Australia to try living with her there. Very little effort was made by Social Welfare to help with this placement. I had been waiting a long time to meet my mother, but the situation broke down within two weeks as I struggled to get on with my mother's partner. It was decided by my mother that I had to go back to Christchurch.
I remember that it was hard on me that the placement did not work out, but that I was used to this happening by then, and it reinforced my feeling that people didn't like me.
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BACK HOME
Within three weeks of returning to Christchurch I was back on the streets, and was found by police, overdosed, in the home of an armed bank robber. I was taken to hospital, and then returned to Kingslea Secure. I was again kept in Secure for several weeks, before Social Welfare placed me with my 18-year- old sister, who had a small child in March 1990, at around the time I turned 16. Social Welfare failed to check on me while I was with my sister, despite me being a State Ward, and despite all previous placements breaking down. I continued to spend time with the kids I had befriended on the streets and in Kingslea and I was getting into some trouble with the police by this stage. I stole my grandmother's car, after she was particularly racist toward me. I was arrested for it.
My records state that on 26 June 1990 my grandmother called Social Welfare to say I had again been arrested for taking her car and my grandmother wanted to know what Social Welfare was going to do with the "little bitch". My grandmother requested that I be placed somewhere secure. She told Social Welfare that they had to move fast as she believed me to be on drugs and told Social Welfare she hoped I got a "dose of AIDS". My grandmother complained about me and all my "rotten Maori friends" and stated that she hated Maori and admitted to being racist.
I was made to attend a rehab facility in Hamner in order to have the charges dropped.
A month after my arrest, I was ordered to attend court where I was told I had been discharged from care. I was a little over 16 years old at this stage. I remember the discharge came out of the blue. In my records, the Family Court Judge who discharged me stated that although there were reservations about discharging me, those reservations could be met by telling me that it was entirely up to me now how I conducted the rest of my life, and that I knew the pitfalls.
I had my first son at 18. After the birth of my son I was in a drug rehabilitation Centre together with my son for a year and a half, until the completion of my sentence. After the rehabilitation centre I went back to my father's home in Christchurch, where there were drugs everywhere and I relapsed. I lost custody of my son to his father.
I had a daughter the following year, but she died within three months due to cot death. I spiraled. The next year my sister died. It felt like everyone around me was either dying or killing themselves. I left Christchurch after the death of my sister and moved to Auckland where I went on the methadone programme, attended rehabilitation, and eventually went cold turkey off drugs. I have been clean since 2000.
Part of my move to Auckland, when I was in my 20s, was to be closer to my mother's side of my family. I have connected with my Tongan side, although unfortunately when my grandmother arrived in NZ, she made the decision to leave the Tongan way of living behind. She did not teach my aunties the Tongan language because she thought the Kiwi/European way of living would be better for her children than the Tongan way.
I acknowledge I am Tongan European, however, I do not feel accepted 100% by the Tongan Community. I have visited Tonga with my children before, however it is fair to say I felt disconnected. When I think about my ethnicity, I know that when I was younger, I was very confused, I didn't know where or who I belonged too. My Tongan side and European side hated each other. Today I am comfortable with who I am, I have created my own identity, and choose to believe in humanity as a whole.
I have slowly built a life for myself and have had a marriage and three more children. I have built a career. For many years I was too afraid to talk about my childhood or seek help, and so I have had to work to change my life on my own.
Having lived my struggle with understanding my culture and identity, I never wanted that for my children. My children are very much loved by my ex- husband's side of the family who are full Tongan. I have always encouraged them to participate in cultural festivities and competitions. They are fully involved with the Tongan Group at their College. I always go and support them alongside my family and their father's family. Both sides are very proud of my children and of their achievements culturally, socially, and academically.
Despite my life changes, the trauma of my childhood has remained with me, and resulted in me losing my marriage. I still have to fight the urge to run when things get hard.
I thought about making a claim and seeking an apology 2000, but I was not strong enough then. It took me until 2019 to begin the process.
I do not have an answer as to how the redress process could be made better for Pasifika clients. The whole process is still quite raw for me. I may have an answer at the other end of it.
I am still working through the redress proves with Cooper Legal. I have found the process of providing my story for my claim, and for this Royal Commission, fascinatingly therapeutic. I am starting to really believe in myself, believe that I have done a great job, and for the first time ever I feel proud of myself, and that I really can achieve anything.
If you’re feeling upset by a similar situation and need to talk to someone, you can contact the following helplines for free:
Click here for a list of support services for survivors of sexual assault which includes Auckland services followed by services in the rest of Aotearoa, New Zealand in geographical order.
- Lifeline: 0800 543 354
- Need to talk? Call or text 1737
- Samaritans: 0800 726 666
- Depression helpline: 0800 111 757
- Youthline: 0800 376 633 or text 234
The Family Violence Information Line (0800 456 450) - provides self-help information and connects people to services where appropriate. It is available seven days a week, from 9am to 11pm, with an after-hours message redirecting callers in the case of an emergency.
Women’s Refuge 0800 733 843
Shine: 0508 744 633 – domestic abuse helpline with professional support