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A man who suffered abuse while in care says he wants transformative change in the state care system in New Zealand.
The Abuse in Care Royal Commission is holding its Pacific inquiry at the Fale o Samoa in Māngere, Auckland.
Photo: RNZ / Andrew McRae
Billy Puka Tanu, 50, is a Tokelauan/Māori from Wellington who was motivated to share his story so that the abuse he endured does not happen to anyone else.
In Tanu s written statement he said that his earliest childhood memory was looking up at his dad and seeing him beat up his mum. I must have being five or six years old.
A compilation of photos taken at Epuni Boys Home.
Photo: Supplied
Keith Wiffin, 61, was first sent to Epuni at the age of 10, and has given evidence for the third time to the inquiry into abuse in care.
He was sexually abused by a housemaster, Alan Moncrieff-Wright, who 40 years later in 2011 was convicted of assaulting three boys, including Wiffin.
In new evidence to the Royal Commission, Wiffin said it has recently come to his attention that boys were driven in the Epuni Home van by Moncrieff-Wright to a Catholic facility in the Hutt Valley area where some boys were selected by priests to be sexually abused.