11 May 2016

Women’s Refuge clarifies information about abuse allegations

Women’s Refuge is anxious to clarify allegations currently circulating in the media about the abuse suffered by Moko Rangitoheriri prior to his death.

It has been reported that Moko’s sister disclosed to a Women’s Refuge social worker that he (Moko) was being abused by Tania Shailer the caregiver of both children. “This is untrue,” says Chief Executive of Women’s Refuge Dr Ang Jury.

“Women’s Refuge has a robust Child Abuse Reporting Protocol in place and if a disclosure of this kind had been made to us, it would have resulted in an immediate notification of concern to CYF. In this case the information provided to us was around child to child interaction and not at a level for us to have considered that these allegations were serious enough for a notification to Child, Youth and Family.”

Dr Jury explained that as part of standard refuge process, the matter of the children’s behaviour was raised in a later discussion with Ms Shailer in order to support her with managing challenging behaviour by and among the children.

“We had not heard any direct allegation from a child on our programme that an adult had physically hurt Moko or any other children. Had this in fact occurred I am sure the response would have been very different.

“It is only now, with the benefit of hindsight, that all of us can look back and wonder what might have happened if more was done for this family,” she said.

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