Former social worker guilty of sex abuse

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A former child social worker has been found guilty of sexually abusing children in his care at an Auckland residential school during the 1980s.

Graeme McCardle, 58, was found guilty of 15 sexual and physical abuse charges in the High Court at Auckland yesterday after six days of jury deliberations. He was cleared of another nine charges, the Dominion Post reported.

The charges related to two women and a man who said they were abused by McCardle when they lived at Waimokoia Residential School in the 1980s. McCardle, who was a social worker at the school, denied all the charges.

Among the incidents McCardle was convicted for was one in which he forced a 12-year-old girl to perform sex acts on him in the school lounge while he watched pornographic movies.

He was also convicted of indecently assaulting a nine-year-old boy in the school's concrete, windowless time-out room.

- NZPA