The judge overseeing the Gloriavale employment trial visits the Christian group. Video / Anna Leask
The little boy had no idea as he fibbed about his age, that he was speaking to one of the country’s top judges.
After shaking Chief Employment Court Judge Christina Inglis’ hand, the little boy, confidently and without hesitation, told her he was 6.
Little Anchor, one of Gloriavale’s many preschoolers, is actually only 4 - and had the Chief Judge giggling when his tall tale was revealed by his mother.
The moment between the judge and Anchor was one of the lighter moments during her two-hour escorted tour of the secretive Christian community today.
Accompanied by lawyers, court staff, leavers Virginia and Anna Courage and Pearl Valor and media, Chief Judge Inglis was shown through various parts of the site at Haupiri, about an hour inland from Greymouth, so she can better understand the workings of the isolated community.
Chief Judge Inglis is presiding over a case between a group of leavers and the current leadership.
Chief Judge Inglis during the tour of Gloriavale. Photo / Anna Leask
Leavers Rose Standtrue, Pearl Valor, Serenity Pilgrim, Anna Courage, Crystal Loyal and Virginia Courage are seeking a ruling that they were employees and not volunteers at Gloriavale.
Their case follows a similar action by a group of former Gloriavale men who the court ruled were employees from when they were just 6 years old, regularly undertaking “strenuous, difficult and sometimes dangerous” work when they were still legally required to be at school.
The trial began last year and will continue over the next two months.
Gloriavale leaders invited the Chief Judge to visit so she could see the areas being discussed - often in depth - in court.
The sound of children singing echoed through the main building as the judge was led through to the laundry area to see for herself the industrial-sized machines to wash and dry clothing and linen for the population of more than 500.
She wandered around taking in the sorting and soaking system, the “rules” tacked to the walls, the names on the baskets and bins - Prudent, Harmony, Gracious, Thankful, Loyal, Diligent.
On to the ironing room where women were working, meticulously steaming, folding and sorting pressed clothing, pillowcases and the like.
They worked in silence - with speed and the ease of workers who had done the task a thousand times over, and no doubt looking forward to their share of the block of Cadbury black forest chocolate discreetly slipped beside their tea and coffee provisions.
The tour group weaved its way through storage areas; through the preserve room with shelves jammed with hundreds of bottles of beautifully purple plums; past pallets of Weetbix, hundreds of packets of toilet paper, wooden crates of apples; past the ice cream machine, the juicer used to make breadcrumbs, their special peanut butter press; and into the infamous Gloriavale kitchen.
The Chief Judge with members of the tour group at Gloriavale. Photo / Anna Leask
The leavers claim the kitchen was one of the most exploitive places - an area where they worked themselves ragged to feed their community, an area where they were not given breaks and where they often started in the earliest hours of a morning from a young age to get their chores done.
The kitchen was bustling. One woman used a wooden spoon almost as tall as the judge to stir a humongous steaming vat of creamy macaroni cheese.
Others hand-washed fruit, two made chocolate chip muffins while others sorted food orders for various families - baskets of fresh tomatoes and courgettes and packets of gingernuts counted out to feed the specific number of “man, lady, pri, pre” - assumedly primary and preschool.
The smell of fresh bread - each loaf fed through a slicer by one kitchen team member - mingled with the sweet baking scent and the sight of handmade cheese being made in an adjoining sterile room was surely making everyone’s mouth water.
Chief Judge Inglis took it all in, sometimes jotting notes in her yellow, initialled notepad, often just nodding.
No one in the group was allowed to speak to any residents, it was merely an observation trip and any question the judge had was answered by one of the two women escorting her or senior member Samuel Valor who heads Gloriavale’s “legal” team.
The Chief Judge meandered behind the hosts across the dining room where each family group has an assigned table and many have a basket of personal items used at meal times - Vitamin C, selenium, liquid iron and a selection of tinctures; condiments and bibles.
On the wall, a selection of printed news articles about their case and the recent cyclone - RNZ and TVNZ articles a prominent favourite but the Herald’s weather coverage also adorning the wall.
Chief Judge Inglis was shown through various work and communal areas at Gloriavale. Photo / Anna Leask
All of the media attached to the corkboard by coloured thumbtacks sit beneath a colourful poster reminding news-consuming residents “Jesus shall reign”.
Nearby, a suggestion box and a locked box where “any concerns or calls for help” can be left.
“Let us know - we can help,” the sign on the box promises, noting all inputs will be “strictly confidential”.
Next, Chief Judge Inglis is led to the preschool area where Gloriavale’s little Anchor and his mates start their learning, apparently with much te reo Māori included.
Signs with translations for colours, clapping, sitting, listening and the like are all over the room where preschoolers with classic Gloriavale names including Endure, Worthy, Glad, Courtesy, Kindhearted and Loving Kindness have their lessons.
In the school area - build about five years ago - little girls aged between about 8 and 10 learn to bake.
Boys, wearing the exact same blue shirts, darker blue pants, ties and windbreaker jackets as their fathers and with their hair perfectly parted and combed, peek out of the classroom to see the visitors before being called back to concentrate.
In the art room, a pre-teen boy focuses hard as he uses a tool to burn an elaborate sketch of a horse into a piece of wooden furniture. Nearby others use light boxes to trace Māori carvings under the watchful eye of their teachers.
The tour winds its way through a hostel, where the Chief Judge encounters young Anchor - with no shoes on his feet but not a single hair of place.
The group are shown a “typical” family bedroom with a double for the parents and bunks for the youngsters. Some have ensuites but there are bathrooms aplenty, we are told.
Chief Judge Inglis is led through the sewing room, then out to the communal vege garden before the tour ends.
The community have smiled, sung, laughed as they worked and put their best foot forward for the tour, obviously working hard to show the visitors that their way of life is their best life.
It would be easy to forget, with all the pleasantries, the openness of the leaders and the community - and the fresh baking handed out at various points of the tour - that Gloriavale is the setting of some ghastly claims.
Claims of servitude, slavery, forced labour, long hours, refusal of dental and medical care - the allegedly cruel and unfair treatment of women.
Those claims are ongoing and are something Chief Judge Inglis will have to decide upon in months to come.
