Report clears cadet school of 'culture of violence'

Grant Bain

An army cadet who killed a fellow cadet at a training school in 1981 should have been charged with manslaughter, an inquiry into abuse at the former cadet school has found.

The inquiry also says other complainants should take their cases to the police.

An inquiry into a number abuse allegations at the cadet training school in Waiouru between 1948 and 1991 found that were cases of bullying and in some instances serious sexual assaults, but there was no culture of violence.

Defence Minister Phil Goff was cool to the idea of compensation for victims and said those who wanted to take the matter further should lay a criminal complaint.

The review by former High Court Judge David Morris also looked at events surrounding the killing of Cadet Grant Bain in 1981, who was shot by another cadet.

Justice Morris found that Cadet Corporal Andrew Read, the man who shot Bain, should have been charged with manslaughter, and that the army and the police did not handle the case well.

Mr Goff said he would be talking to Mr Bain's family who are seeking an apology, costs and compensation.

Justice Morris found that there was a lack of monitoring in the barracks and there was "a real possibility" the fatal shooting could have been prevented.

"As to the claims for compensation and damages, the family has undoubtedly suffered considerable trauma," Justice Morris said.

Mr Bain was 17 years old and had only been a cadet for three weeks when he was killed by Read.

Mr Morris said that there was no collusion between the army and the police over the charges that Read pleaded guilty to -- carelessly discharging a firearm causing death -- but the police had not used the appropriate charge.

Justice Morris believed that Read would have been imprisoned for four years if the more serious charge had been laid.

The army should also have used internal disciplinary measures against the corporal and had also misinformed the Bain family about the shooting.

Read died in 1998 in a forestry accident on the West Coast, aged 35.

Justice Morris said the army had failed to supervise the use of ammunition, Read had too much authority over junior cadets and a code of silence at the barracks meant earlier incidents had not set off alarm bells with the army.

The inquiry found that for a period senior cadets had been responsible for looking after their juniors with little after hours supervision from regular army soldiers.

"Its effect was to place 15-and-a-half-year-olds to 16-year-olds under the control and dominance of others in many cases but a few months older than their charges," Justice Morris said.

"Teenagers were being taught how to kill during the day and put in charge of their fellow teenagers at night. The situation was a fertile ground for bullying."

The inquiry was ordered after a former Waiouru cadet, Ian Fraser, claimed in October last year there had been widespread physical, psychological and sexual abuse of cadets as young as 15 at the school from the 1960s to the 1980s.- NZPA