Backyard horror in the back of beyond

CATHERINE MASTERS visits the remote Coromandel community where Josephine Warren lost control, threatened, tortured and then accidentally set a boy in her care alight.


The 309 Road. Remote and rugged, green and pretty.

It stretches, mostly unsealed, from Whitianga to Coromandel, a picturesque blend of the quite nice to pretty basic New Zealand homes dotted in the bush.

And last October in one of the more basic homes, at the Whitianga endof the road, Josephine Warren lost control.

The 33-year-old was last week jailed for four months for accidentally setting a foster child in her care alight.

She had been losing control for two days and instigated a bizarre campaign apparently to control the boy through fear. But events collided and she snapped. Just days before the incident she had learnt painful things about her own past.

A report written later by Dr David Chaplow, head of the Mason Clinic, said she showed features of post-traumatic stress disorder.

During those two days, she ordered her children to fetch an axe and threatened to chop off the terrified boy's head. She swung a baseball bat at his head.

She made him take off his shirt and boots and tied his hands together, smeared his chest with fake blood and threatened to tie him to a tree with a dead chicken around his neck.

She made him lie on a gravel driveway with hands still tied and led him to believe she was going to run him over with a van.

That same day she pretended to pour petrol over his head but did not. Instead, she made him remove his skivvy, poured petrol on it and told him to put it back on.

To frighten him, she flicked a lighter in front of him. But the petrol caught fire and the boy was engulfed in flames.

She doused him in the nearby meandering Mahakirau River, receiving burns herself as she did so.

Despite the backyard horror, hardly anyone in Whitianga seems to remember Josephine Warren.

Nor do they in Te Aroha. Inquiries there reveal she was active in the Assembly of God church, otherwise she remained anonymous.

The family stayed in Whitianga for less than a year, just six months, say some, in a road where people come and go frequently.

Local police say the area attracts alternative lifestylers and loners.

"You'd have to be a loner because there's nothing there," says Constable Terry McFetridge.

Cannabis raids in nearby bush take place here as they do in other parts of the Coromandel.

Signs warn not to approach the private property beyond some of the long, winding driveways.

And police say the warnings should not be taken lightly: "It's pretty remote up there ... "

It was here that the Child, Youth and Family Services placed one of its most difficult charges, a 10-year-old boy with behavioural problems, the nature of which cannot be revealed.

During sentencing in the High Court at Auckland, Justice Robert Fisher pointed out that during the six weeks the boy was there, Josephine Warren was given no relief.

The service says its social worker checked the property when delivering the boy, but admits that it had not checked Warren's credentials.

She later passed police, health and reference checks - but, says one neighbour, "That just shows how slack the screening process is."

No neighbours want to be identified in the stretch where Josephine Warren, her husband and four children, plus eventually two foster children lived. Despite the difficulty posed by the first child, CYFS had asked her to take another difficult child shortly before the incident.

Some neighbours were hostile and said they would not judge the woman they called Josie.

Others were harsh in their condemnation of what she did that day. "Four months, she should have got 4000 years," said one.

Another neighbour claims she was maniacally religious, but friendly enough.

"It's the system that needs looking at. When people like her are able to look after children who are already at risk ... there's something wrong."

Justice Fisher's judgment also said much in her credit. He praised her good character, saying she had triumphed over a difficult background which had included the hurt and grief of abandonment, sexual abuse and violence.

Until this lapse she had provided a very successful home for her family and other foster children.

Many references describe her as an able, caring and successful foster parent.

CYFS and the Open Home Foundation, which also placed foster children with her, say her behaviour could not be predicted.

Open Home had placed 20 or more children with her for two years but had stopped before CYFS placed the boy.

Chief executive Richard Killin says the reason for stopping was private - but it had nothing to do with any mistreatment of children.

"It was a shock to us. During our time there was no evidence that anything like that would ever happen."

He discounts the neighbour's religious zealot tag - "people often put labels on others .

"It's just a tragedy and who knows why these things happen."

The Crown Law Office is still considering whether to appeal against the sentence.

Herald Online feature: violence at home

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