James' spirit shines through at Beyond Violence conference

By CATHERINE MASTERS

As Trish Grant began her workshop on the death of a small boy, the wind howled and the rain lashed the New Plymouth hotel where the final day of the Beyond Violence conference was under way.

It seemed an appropriate day for the author of the Commissioner for Children's Office report into the brutal death of James Whakaruru to speak.

The boy's birth name, Te Riri O Te Rangi, means turbulence of the skies and if, as some at the conference believed, his spirit was there guiding them then the weather, wild enough to ground aircraft yesterday, may have been the proof.

Ms Grant, a senior advocate in the office, said she still cried for James, whose awful death was upstaged only by other vicious killings of young children by people they should have been able to trust.

She said she cried all the way through the writing of her report, which shocked the nation earlier this year, pulling no punches in its slating of a wide range of agencies and individuals who failed either to notice the abuse, report it or adequately follow it up.

But it is not just the small victims she cries for - "I cry for the children and I also cry for the parents."

That includes Te Rangi, James' mother, who did not intervene to stop his death - and even Benny Haewera, her partner, who is now in jail for savagely beating the boy to death before he reached the age of 5.

"They are acting in ways that they don't feel good about. The generations of social disaffection that we see ... What lies inside adults' hearts that has never been allowed to come out, they can't talk about their deepest hurts and truths and they respond by violence.

"I think that if we can have parenting programmes, programmes in schools, community intolerance of violence and a climate of caring whereby people who are concerned by what they're thinking and feeling can access help without any shame or feelings of being judged or blamed."

In Te Rangi's case, no one ensured she was helped when she needed it at the age of 13 after the deaths of both her grandparents, who she had lived with for most of her life. Grief-stricken, she dropped out of school.

And no one ensured she was helped when, at 15, she was pregnant with James and attempted suicide two weeks before his birth.

Things may have been different if they had, or if interventions had been made a generation earlier when both sides of the boy's family came to the attention of social welfare.

Ms Grant said the response to the report had been excellent because of the ensuing clamour from people saying abuse had got to stop.

"However, I think what the report showed is that we need to audit the layers underneath legislation, procedures and protocols to ensure that in each community they are being activated and implemented."

She had been "absolutely staggered" when writing the report, which features a smiling James on the cover with long sleeves and trousers covering his bruises, to find there had been so many failings. Legislation in place to protect him had not been applied properly and agencies did not make sure it was.

She also called for a national health database in which information was shared, because James had been seen 40 times by health professionals but no one checked previous files.

Every member of the public who saw a bruise on a child or suspected abuse of some sort should check it out, she said. "I think it creates a climate of caring, where we each take responsibility for each child in our communities.

"If we really want to turn around these negative statistics that New Zealand's got in terms of suicide, violence, child abuse, deaths, we really need to view our children differently. We need to prioritise their safety, but we don't want to get into finger pointing, dobbing in.

"No one wants to kill their children and there are very few psychopaths out there. People are doing the best they can according to the circumstances they've got and some of those people are living in very reduced circumstances."

Herald Online feature: Violence at home

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