New Zealand Royal Commission: the Methodist Church accepted that its own governance failures enabled abuse in three children's homes

Proceedings

1. 2024-07-24 · final report presented to Parliament

   Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care (Aotearoa New Zealand). The Inquiry recorded that 'the Methodist Church accepted that the Methodist Conference failed to provide sufficient monitoring, oversight and safeguarding of the three Methodist Children's Homes and that these failures enabled abuse and neglect to occur' (¶688). The Church acknowledged that children and young people were subjected to sexual, physical and psychological abuse and neglect in the children's homes, in connected foster placements, and at Wesley College in Pukekohe, and took full responsibility for every person abused and neglected in its care (¶711). On the mechanism, the Inquiry recorded survivor Mr HU, placed at the Christchurch Methodist Children's Home aged 11, who was abused by a clergy member who 'had no role in the day-to-day running of the residence, yet had free access to the home and was once even in the bathroom while Mr HU was having a bath' (¶604).

Documented coercion mechanisms

• clergy status granting unsupervised access to children in residential care
• absence of sufficient monitoring, oversight and safeguarding, which the Church accepted enabled the abuse