Nia Glassie would have been 18 this year. Her brutal killing, at age 3, after prolonged and horrific abuse, shocked the country in 2007. As a nation, we said, never again. But it has happened again. And again and again - 174 times. Rotorua Daily Post senior reporter Kelly Makiha
Our child abuse shame: 174 children killed since Nia Glassie's murder in Rotorua
Nia Glassie.
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Nia would have turned 18 this year but her life was cut short in the most horrific way on August 3, 2007 - exactly 15 years ago on Wednesday this week.
The 3-year-old's mother, Lisa Kuka, who at the time was 34, left Nia and her sisters in the care of her 17-year-old boyfriend, Wiremu Curtis, and his brother, Michael Curtis, 21, while she went to work picking kiwifruit in Te Puke.
They lived in a rented home in Koutu's Frank St where Michael Curtis' girlfriend, Oriwa Kemp, 17, also lived. Nia's cousin, Michael Pearson, 19, would also often be at the house.
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It was a scene of parties, alcohol and drugs yet the wasted young people were left to look after the young children.
The Curtis brothers decided they didn't like Nia and thought she was "ugly". The months leading up to her death saw acts of horrendous torture witnessed by her young sisters.
They would put Nia in a clothes dryer and spin her on a hot setting, hang her on a clothesline and spin her around until she fell, hold her over a burning fire, use her to practice wrestling moves, shove her into piles of rubbish, give her cold baths, drag her half-naked through a sandpit, throw her at walls and drop her from heights.
A fatal attack, in which the brothers kicked young Nia in the head, was the final blow. She was then left for 33 hours before medical help was sought.
Her mother came home to find her semi-conscious. She had soiled her bed. Kuka bathed her before putting her back to bed. She then celebrated Michael Curtis' 21st birthday at the house while her daughter lay dying.
She took Nia to Rotorua Hospital the following day. She was then rushed to Starship Hospital but was unable to breathe for herself. She died 13 days later on August 3, 2007.
Bain has been retired since 2020 but the country's child abuse statistics are cemented in his memory. He rattles them off with disgust.
Speaking to the Rotorua Daily Post Weekend this week, Bain said: "A child is killed in New Zealand every five weeks and there are 14,000 substantial findings of child abuse in New Zealand every year. Police respond to a domestic callout every seven minutes."
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Bain said if authorities registered every child's name and address and did spot checks they would have walked into Nia's Frank St house and seen little children being looked after by "stoned 17-year-olds".
If that had happened, she could well be alive today.
"If you don't know who they are or if they even exist, how the hell do you know if they are being abused? That's the guts of it."
Good parents and loving caregivers might find it overbearing to have authorities checking on them but New Zealand's child abuse rates spoke volumes.
"The figures are sad and confronting."
Bain said in 99 per cent of the cases authorities would only need to visit the homes once or twice but while experts knew the signs of a child in trouble they needed to visit the homes and lay eyes on the children.
"I'm disappointed that that was what I saw as being completely necessary at the time (and it wasn't actioned) and I still think it is necessary now."
Bain said there had been recent calls from High Court judges for more to be done about those who don't report known child abuse.
Just this week, three Court of Appeal judges remarked in William Sio's sentence appeal decision it was unfortunate no one who knew 5-year-old Ferro-James was being abused reported their concerns to authorities.
Sio is serving a life sentence with a minimum parole period of 17 years for beating his son to death in 2020 in an emergency housing property in Rotorua.
Last month a High Court judge urged people who worked with children to speak up if they suspected abuse was happening following the death of 5-year-old Malachi Subecz at the hands of his carer.
"The tragedy of Malachi's death provides some strong and clear lessons to everyone involved in the care of children," Justice Paul Davison said during sentencing.
Other horrific child abuse cases in the region include the death of baby Richard Royal Uddin, whose skull had been "cracked like an egg" after an assault in June 2016.
Surender Singh Mehrok, 21, was sentenced to seven years and nine months in prison in relation to his death.
There was also Moko Rangitoheriri, also 3, who was subjected to horrific abuse at the hands of his carers, Tania Shailer and David Haerewa, who were jailed for 17 years after admitting his manslaughter. Moko died in August 2015 while in the care of the couple.
Bain said he would recommend it be an offence not to report instances. Currently, people who are in the care of a child can be held to account if their standard of care is not considered to be reasonable.
"There should be a requirement to report incidences and it should be an offence not to ... There needs to be drastic action."
Figures released to the Rotorua Daily Post Weekend under the Official Information Act shows the Bay of Plenty is overrepresented in rates of child abuse.
The Rotorua Daily Post Weekend requested names of the children who had died since Nia's death in 2007 but police withheld that information for privacy reasons.
The figures showed 174 children had been killed since Nia died with the most being in the Central police district, Canterbury and Bay of Plenty.
With cases of assault and neglect, the Bay of Plenty far outweighs other police regions.
Bay of Plenty police criminal investigations manager Detective Inspector Lew Warner said
when taking into account all child abuse, including sexual offending, the Bay of Plenty was the second worst in New Zealand.
He said there were 1123 victims of child abuse in the Bay of Plenty in 2021 - which was a massive jump of 11.41 per cent on the figures in 2020.
"It's something the Bay of Plenty should be embarrassed about."
He said the police's child protection teams saw a split between physical assaults and sexual assaults.
"The victims are often our most vulnerable and this impacts on the communities they live in and on our staff who investigate these matters daily. I know these cases impact on the officers who investigate them, however, they realise they are dealing with a small part of our communities and the behaviours are not the norm."
The sad reality was often someone knew something and didn't do anything earlier.
"Often when you review the investigations there have been opportunities to intervene if people would speak up and this hurts."
He said the offending was often normal to those families - the perpetrators had been victims and they were repeating what had happened to them. Drugs and alcohol were usually a factor, he said.
Online abuse and other forms of what Warner called "transnational child sexual exploitation" were also happening more often and that was a concern.
Rotorua Lakes councillor and outspoken social issues advocate Merepeka Raukawa-Tait was among those demanding change after Nia's death.
She feels nothing has changed since then because no one has looked deep enough at vulnerable families and why they aren't coping.
"Rotten behaviour is accepted in these homes as normal and children bear the brunt. We don't have enough targeted support for families with addictions, little income, housing stress and health issues including mental health. Children live in these hell holes called homes."
She said mothers often coped as best they could but eventually gave up and realised "this is as good as it gets".
She said Oranga Tamariki was there to help but the organisation wasn't trusted and as a result people didn't report cases of suspected child abuse.
In her view, all providers contracted to provide families with social support services needed to be reviewed - with no exceptions.
"We need to start following the provider-money. Where's it currently going, what support is being provided and by whom? No significant change in results means get out of the way for those more suited to get results."
She said an independent child-wellbeing advocate who wasn't a police officer or a social worker should be appointed from the community and funded by the Government.
Similar to Bain's suggestion, she said it should be mandatory for people to report child abuse.
"Enough of this nonsense 'we didn't like to say anything'. Know the signs; unexplained injuries, fear of certain adults, sudden changes in behaviour including hostility."
Getting to the root cause of other problems was also needed, such as inadequate housing, lack of money and health problems.
She feared New Zealanders had a high tolerance to child abuse and it was ingrained in some families.
"Solutions require a no bulls*** approach. No excuses. You either step up or your children are removed to other responsible family members who don't want to see their whakapapa abused."
Children's Commissioner Judge Frances Eivers said tragic, needless deaths such as Nia's made us all question ourselves as a society.
"Just like the deaths of James Whakaruru, Delcelia Witika and so many more before and after them, we ask ourselves each time 'How did it come to this? Why didn't someone do something?'.
She said the reality was often far more complex.
"Sometimes people are too scared to, sometimes it's a fear of being involved with government agencies, being wrong, or thinking 'someone else will have made the call'."
Everyone needed to move past those fears and assumptions, she said.
There was no mandatory reporting under the law and, on the surface, it seemed attractive but expert advice was not to make it mandatory.
"If I thought mandatory reporting would work I'd support it, but unfortunately that's not the case. Like many well-intentioned initiatives, it's outweighed by the risk of negative consequences."
Judge Eivers said some parents might keep their children out of school, when school was the only safe place for that child and the only place they could breathe easily without fear. Parents might prevent children from being seen by other adults, such as doctors.
She said the same issues were at play with the idea of spot checks.
"There is a very real concern that troubled families would go underground, perhaps not see a midwife, not go to hospital for their birth, or even register the birth of their child. In the meantime, families, where there are no concerns, end up feeling victimised and at risk."
There is also a big question about who would do these checks and what their training would be.
"What would they consider inadequate parenting?"
She said more practical and achievable answers were getting help for the most vulnerable and that lay in the hands of everyone.
"Those living around the Glassie household knew something was wrong and said nothing. The community a child lives in is their first line of protection."
She said while she didn't support spot checks or making people who didn't report suspected child abuse liable under an offence, she did support making the public more aware of the signs of abuse a priority, to give people more confidence to speak up when they saw something wrong.
Children's Minister Kelvin Davis said New Zealand's child abuse rates were unacceptable.
He said Oranga Tamariki's chief social worker was leading a review into the Malachi Subecz case which would look at what Oranga Tamariki knew, how they responded and whether the decisions that were made, based on the information, were appropriate.
He said it would also consider whether their current assessment procedures and processes needed to be modified and the recommendations would be considered carefully.
When asked how he felt about Bain's suggestions to address the problems, he said Oranga Tamariki did not have the power to perform spot checks on every child in New Zealand and any move to change that would need significant consideration.
Oranga Tamariki's role
Every day more than 200 people call Oranga Tamariki's helpline reporting concerns about children in New Zealand being abused.
But it's still not enough.
Nicolette Dickson is officially Oranga Tamariki's quality practice and experiences deputy chief executive and has been a social worker for many years. She said it hurt deeply whenever a child was killed.
Dickson said Oranga Tamariki was only tasked with dealing with children they knew about and it was imperative people reported abuse.
In response to Raukawa-Tait's comment about there being a mistrust in the public around Oranga Tamaki's role, she said she acknowledged many people thought their job was to take children off families.
She said Oranga Tamariki's 1800 social workers worked every day to improve families' lives by giving practical skills to make better mums and dads.
When asked about what she thought of Bain's suggestions, she said clearly there was fear of people reporting child abuse because they were worried the children might be taken from their homes or that they didn't have proof of their allegations.
She said changes were something the Government needed to consider but she would rather see those fears addressed.
"My concern is we don't make it too hard for people to seek help. We don't want to call out people as bad parents."
She said "without a doubt" Oranga Tamariki was saving lives.
"I know from my own work that there are absolutely children alive and thriving today who have said there was a point when Oranga Tamariki workers stepped in and things got better."
Where are they now?
Michael and Wiremu Curtis
The brothers are both serving life sentences for murder with a minimum non-parole period of 17-and-half years.
They are not eligible for parole until early 2025.
Lisa Kuka
Nia's mother was jailed for nine years on two counts of manslaughter - one for failing to provide Nia the necessaries of life and the other for failing to protect her from violence, thereby causing her death.
Her parole board information, released to the Rotorua Daily Post Weekend, said she was refused parole in 2013 but was granted it in 2015.
However, she was recalled to prison shortly after because she breached her release conditions by living at a house that had five young children at it - something which wasn't allowed under her parole conditions.
In January 2017 she was granted parole again despite a prison officer expressing concerns about her behaviour deteriorating in the weeks leading up to her hearing.
The officer said she wasn't responding to authority positively, she had been stubborn and it was "her way or the highway".
Records show she had not been to prison since.
Oriwa Kemp
The then 17-year-old was jailed for three years for assaulting Nia and was released in December 2010 having served her full sentence.
At age of 14, she had her first child which was taken from her following her arrest for the offending on Nia.
The New Zealand Herald reported in 2018 that after her release from prison, Kemp went on to have four more children - all of them being taken from her by authorities when they were born.
Between having her children, she was in and out of court on charges relating to her partner and father of her children - a man who was 30 years her senior.
She pleaded guilty to assaulting him when she was four months' pregnant - but at the same time he was before the courts for assaults on her.
Michael Pearson
He was jailed for three years for charges relating to cruelty and assaulting Nia and was released in July 2010.
Documents released to the Rotorua Daily Post Weekend showed he failed in his attempts to be paroled given his risk of reoffending and unsatisfactory behaviour in prison that saw him incur five misconducts.
What to do if you think a child is being abused
If you believe a child is in immediate danger, call police on 111.
If you're worried about a child and want to make a referral or report of concern, call on Oranga Tamariki on 0508 FAMILY (0508 326 459) or email contact@ot.govt.nz.
