Darryl Smith, who was abused multiple times in state care, spoke during the inquiry about abuse at Marylands Schools in Christchurch, which closed in the 1980s. Photo / Linda Robertson
WARNING: This article discusses sexual abuse and suicide which may be distressing.
Two days after his arrival at Marylands School, a young boy was taken to the church and forced to perform sexual acts on two religious brothers entrusted to care for him.
They pulled out a Bible and told the boy: “This is what God means by love”.
A week later he was taken back to the church and raped on the marble altar.
This is one of countless cases of horrific historical abuse against young boys at the Christchurch school, which has been referred to by survivors during the Royal Commission of Inquiry as “hell on earth”.
In an interim report released today, the inquiry’s 48 findings :
Archbishop Paul Martin SM said the scale of abuse set out in the report is abhorrent and should never have happened.
“Today’s case-study report highlights the horrific abuse and suffering that took place, and the failure of individuals to ensure safety and manage redress adequately,” he said. “Confronting these realities is a significant and necessary step as we all continue to transform the way we manage redress and ensure the safety of everyone in a Church environment.
“The abuse described should never have happened. Nor should any abuse happen. I want to restate categorically that the bishops of the Catholic Church in Aotearoa New Zealand have zero tolerance for abuse. No form of abuse, misconduct or inappropriate behaviour is acceptable in the Church community.
“The Church must continue to confront the difficult truths of the past, including the inexcusable abuse and suffering described in the case study report.”
As part of its investigation of the Catholic Church, the commission undertook a case study, including a public hearing, into abuse in the care of the Order of St John of God.
Members of the religious order cared for children and young people in Christchurch from the early 1950s onwards.
Marylands School and the Hebron Trust were established in Christchurch in 1955 and 1984 by the Order of St John of God.
Until the late 1980s successive governments placed disabled children and young people in the facilities to be trained. Marylands was designed to support and educate boys, as young as 6, who had disabilities or learning and behavioural problems.
Five brothers were sent from Australia to staff the school, most were untrained as teachers without specialist skills to educate disabled children.
Within the first year of the school’s operation, all five brothers had been accused of abusing the children.
The brothers routinely raped, sexually assaulted and beat the boys. The children were forced to perform sexual acts on the brothers, sometimes more than one at a time, as well as other boys.
The report titled ‘Stolen Lives, Marked Souls’ states that of the 37 brothers who ministered in the Christchurch community when the Order operated Marylands, 21 had allegations of abuse made against them.
Two of the brothers were convicted of committing indecencies against children. One remains in an Australian prison where he is likely to die while the other has already died. Other trials did not take place due to illness of the brothers or survivors.
One Marylands survivor Darryl Smith recalled being raped when he was seven years old by one of the brothers. They told him no one would believe him if he spoke up.
Smith has since gone on to self-publish several accounts of the abuse he suffered and is a historical child sex abuse advocate.
One survivor was made to have sex with a younger boy. A brother then told the boy that he was “like him”, an abuser, and he would get in trouble if he disclosed the abuse.
Sometimes the abuse would happen behind closed doors, other times in plain sight of everyone as a punishment.
Abuse was so normalised, the boys started sexually abusing each other.
A boy known to have been abused by one brother became “easier prey” for another brother.
One boy who had an intellectual disability was sent to Marylands when he was 10 years old. He spent three days in school and then was put in the kitchen, made to wash dishes for the next four years.
He recalled being separated from the other boys, unable to play with or eat meals with them.
He was sexually assaulted in the swimming pool by himself by one of the brothers.
On one occasion he was made to gas puppies to death with a brother. He was then instructed to take the dead puppies to the dump.
Another Marylands survivor spoke about being gathered into a room with a group of other boys and forced to perform oral sex on one of the brothers. When he tried to pull away he was hit with a baseball bat so hard his nose bled.
He described the brothers getting angry while they were abusing him as he often wouldn’t hold still but he soon “adapted” to the abuse.
He was taken to the hospital morgue on one occasion and forced to see a dead body as a scare tactic.
The boy told multiple teachers, social workers and even police when he was caught running away but no one believed him.
His teenage years were horrible, and it wasn’t until he went to prison that he learned to read and write and by the time he was 25 he was a patched member of a gang.
“It is sad to say that the only sense of belonging and support I ever felt was being part of a gang.”
Another survivor recalled a boy being forced to strip naked outside in front of others and was sexually assaulted as punishment.
Some brothers held negative racist attitudes toward Māori students, often calling them “n*****s”.
One Māori boy was forced to dress in a grass skirt and perform a Māori song and dance for the brothers. After the performance, the boy was forced to participate in group sex with the brothers.
Another Māori student said boys would often fight him because of his ethnicity.
After the Order left Marylands in 1984 the Bishop of Christchurch invited brothers to establish a youth ministry to support at-risk people, often “street kids”, many of whom were Māori.
Despite the allegations of his abuse at Marylands, Brother Bernard McGrath, one of the Order’s most prolific serial rapists, was appointed the sole brother of the ministry, named Hebron Trust.
From there his “reign of terror” only escalated.
Boys as young as 8 went to Hebron, although it was mostly aimed at teenagers who were homeless, referred by social service agencies or by the criminal and youth justice system.
About three-quarters of survivors turned to drugs or alcohol as a way of coping with the abuse they endured. Many had contemplated or attempted suicide, others had died this way.
One survivor began getting in trouble with the police in his early teens but instead of being dealt with by the court, he was sent to Brother McGrath’s house to do community work such as gardening and chores.
He said McGrath routinely sexually assaulted him in his office. On one occasion when he raped the boy, the brother he “was in with the police” and no one would believe the boy if he spoke up about the abuse.
One survivor said McGrath ruined his life.
He was subjected to routine rapes by McGrath at Hebron Trust from the age of 15 to 19.
He said McGrath would put a scarf in his mouth and tape it shut with duct tape so he wouldn’t make any noise when he raped him. The boy was also handcuffed and blindfolded, stating McGrath would become aggressive and choke him.
“I often thought I was going to die,” he told the inquiry.
The boy said McGrath would often put things in his drink that made him dizzy. He also gave the boy alcohol while he was supposed to be counselling him through drug and alcohol use.
The survivor, now an adult said he got involved with gangs and has been in and out of prison since the 1990s. He mostly lives on the streets or with gangs and has attempted suicide several times.
McGrath had a trusted reputation in the community, with survivors often describing him as friendly and supportive upon meeting him. This made it difficult for victims to disclose the abuse as they were often told McGrath would “never do that kind of stuff”.
The report states McGrath often supplied drugs to the boys before sexually assaulting them and sometimes made boys engage in sexual acts with their family members or watch while he sexually assaulted their family members.
One boy was six when he was sent to Marylands. On his first day, someone had defecated in the gym and one of the brothers accused him of doing it.
The brother then rubbed his face in the faeces in front of everyone as punishment.
He recalled McGrath raping and beating him often. He said he was beaten so severely once that his knees cracked and even as an adult he still has the scars.
When he was 10 he was caught holding a packet of cigarettes belonging to another boy. As punishment, he was made to smoke the whole packet in front of everyone.
“He made me inhale the smoke on each puff. This started my addiction to cigarettes.”
In his adult life, the man had been in and out of prison and suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and chronic anxiety.
“I want to be heard. I want justice to be served for all of us who were hurt by these monsters.”
Some boys witnessed violence that they believe may have led to the deaths of other boys.
According to Marylands attendance register, six boys aged between nine and 14 died while at the school or shortly after leaving it.
Survivors described instances that ended in “suspicious circumstances” such as receiving a severe beating and never returning to the school.
One survivor described a brother rushing at one boy who had trouble understanding things. He said the brother pushed the boy over and he smacked his head on the concrete and began bleeding heavily. He was then taken to the medical room, never to be seen again.
“The way he was just hit I knew he wouldn’t make it. He was helpless.”
Another survivor spoke of a brother who pushed a boy into the pool and he sank to the bottom. Soon after a funeral was held for the boy.
Police said they have not found “any records of death of children while at Marylands” and do not “hold any information about the circumstances of these deaths”.
Children at the St Joseph’s Orphanage were aged between birth and 11 years and described nuns taking them from their beds and delivering them to priests or brothers as punishment. There, they would be sexually assaulted.
One survivor recalled being taken to a chapel with a group of other boys. He said he was injected with a sedative and forced to carry out sexual acts on other boys, nuns, brothers and priests.
Some of the boys were also taken to Marylands as punishment.
The devastating impacts on the survivors once they left Marylands saw about three quatres turn to alcohol and drugs as a way of coping. Others struggled with their mental health and attempted suicide.
One caregiver at the school told the inquiry a telling sign of the abuse was seeing the boys’ mood change as some became “violent and emotionally uncontrollable’.
The report stated Marylands was a “terrifying and unpredictable place” with little evidence of any schooling.
The young boys had no means of escape and would often talk about ending their lives.
“The Inquiry acknowledges the trauma likely to have been experienced by many at Marylands whose experiences are not and will probably never be known”.
The report describes what happened at the hands of the brothers of the St John of God at Marylands School and Hebron Trust as the “worst possible” type of abuse and neglect.
It stated that this is not a report about “bad apples” but reflects that those responsible who “shamefully” enabled the abuse to continue must take accountability for their failings in caring for and protecting the children.
Emily Moorhouse is a Christchurch-based Open Justice journalist at NZME. She joined NZME in 2022. Before that, she was at the Christchurch Star.
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