Whangārei Oranga Tamariki caregivers' child abuse trial closed to the public after complainant walks out

Warning: This article discusses allegations of child abuse and may be upsetting to some readers.

A young complainant giving evidence in an alleged child abuse case broke down in court, throwing a drink and walking out, prompting the trial doors to close to the public.

A Whangārei couple entrusted with the care of vulnerable children are currently on trial after accusations they subjected four young people to years of violent abuse while they were Oranga Tamariki caregivers.

The 35 charges are being heard before a jury at the Whangārei District Court and include assaults with weapons, cruelty to a child and failing to seek medical attention.

The alleged offending came to light when a child, Sally*, ran away and a friend's mother alerted police.

An investigation led police to other children who had been in the care of the couple, who cannot be named, at various stages dating back to 2012.

Eighteen of the 35 charges centre on Sally, who told police she was subjected to near-daily physical punishment and verbal reprimands whenever she or the other children misbehaved.

She alleged she was hit with a stick, slapped, punched and on one occasion had her wrists bound until they bled because she would not eat her food.

Sally referred to the couple as her parents and was the first witness to give evidence via closed-circuit television.

While facing a two-day cross-examination by two defence lawyers she was visibly distressed and required several breaks.

'Why are you lying?'

One of the charges relates to an allegation that the male caregiver once held a lighter to Sally's ankle and burned her.

The now-teen said in evidence it was because she and others had been playing with a lighter and had set fire to some rubbish.

"I got taken into the room and ... I remember my foot being held down and holding a lighter under it, burning my foot. So yeah, punishment," she said.

The man's lawyer Christopher Muston put to her that it never happened, to which she responded: "It did".

On Wednesday, Douglas Blaikie, defence lawyer for the accused woman, cross-examined Sally in relation to the allegations involving his client.

One incident of alleged abuse was said to have begun over a cellphone Sally hid under her T-shirt and she gave detailed evidence of what she recalled happened.

"She started hitting me and the phone dropped out and she threw me into the corner and then slammed the door on my hands," she said.

"I got up, went into the room and then my dad started going off at me, hitting me, calling me a c*** and stuff."

Blaikie suggested the woman had not committed what was alleged.

"Why is she lying?" Sally asked.

"Why are you lying?" Blaikie responded, sparking an emotional outburst by Sally.

"I'm not f***ing lying," she said before throwing a drink at the camera and leaving the room in which she was being cross-examined.

Shortly after, Sally resumed giving evidence but Judge Greg Davis directed the remainder of the trial be conducted in closed court to relieve any potential issues with remaining complainants.

Mary*, another child formerly in the couple's care, alleged she was also subjected to abuse.

Her evidential interview was played to the jury on Thursday.

Mary, now an adult, was on daily medication for neurological disorders and said that after three days in the couple's care they stopped giving her medication.

She said she had a medical plan, a nightly routine for sleep and waking in the morning, and when she was off her medications she became violent and uncontrollable.

"After a while, they'd say, 'you don't need those medications'," she said.

"I'd say, 'I might look all right on the outside but if you don't want to see your house in a mess, I gotta have my right medication'.

"They'd send me to bed real late. It was pretty terrible. I didn't like them."

Mary said the couple often withheld food from her while she watched everyone else eat.

She felt she was "treated like a dog".

After her medications ceased, Mary became aggressive towards other children in the home and was allegedly beaten as punishment. On one occasion, she was left bleeding.

She said she saw other children being beaten and would raise questions about why the couple were allegedly abusing children.

"I wanted to kill myself," she said in her evidential interview.

Mary once threatened to self-harm, allegedly prompting the man to forcibly stop her and lock her in a room for three days.

"There was nothing in it. I was locked up for three days and everything was all quiet. It's freaky, it's cold, I never had a shower, it was pretty sad."

The girl said that on the day she was due to leave for a new home, she told the other children to speak up and say they'd had enough.

Alleged chilli assault, covered in bruises

Mary recalled that on the way to the Oranga Tamariki offices she began swearing at the couple and they stopped the car.

She alleged they were parked for five hours and she repeatedly warned Oranga Tamariki would be wondering where she was.

"They put all the sheets and blankets over the windows so no one could see what was happening," she said.

She alleged the couple then held her down and poured chilli into her mouth.

"I was screaming, I was crying and all I said was 'just kill me'," the trial heard.

"I suffered through the hotness around my whole face. I was in so much pain."

Mary said she reacted to the alleged chilli attack and her lips swelled, so the couple called Oranga Tamariki and said she was vomiting and they could not bring her in.

"I text the social worker. I said, 'Don't believe that. Come to the house and actually see what we've been through'. She didn't wanna answer her phone," Mary said.

"I was counting the hours, the minutes, until I was out of there."

The next day, as Mary arrived at the Oranga Tamariki offices, the man allegedly threatened her.

"If you say anything, we will hunt you down and we will beat the hell out of you," she alleged the man warned her.

Mary said she was covered in bruises and when asked by a social worker how they occurred, she said she did it to herself.

The remaining complainants are yet to give evidence. The trial is expected to run for three weeks.

*Names have been changed to protect the identities of the complainants.

* This story originally appeared in the New Zealand Herald.