A former Taranaki man who was placed in the care of one of the country's worst sex-offenders and was then abused will receive an apology from the Social Development Ministry.

The man, who asked not to be named, said he was placed under six months' supervision by the Social Welfare Department when, aged 14, he went to live with Peter Robert Jordan on a Taranaki farm in 1982.

Jordan, who has been convicted of more than 30 rapes and sexual assaults, is expected to die in prison after being sentenced in 2009 to preventive detention with a minimum non-parole period of 12 years.

Jordan had been sentenced to 18 months' probation for the indecent assault of a boy aged under 16 only four years before the department placed the 14-year-old in his care in 1982.

At the time it was not compulsory for the department, now the Social Development Ministry, to do criminal checks on potential carers but early this year the law changed to require police checks for CYF placements.

In a statement to the Daily News yesterday, ministry spokeswoman Alison McDonald said the man's claim had been approved and they planned to apologise today.

"The ministry acknowledges that this man wasn't provided safe care while he was under the supervision of the former Department of Social Welfare in 1982 and 1983." She said the man should not have gone to live with someone convicted of indecent assault.

"In hindsight, not enough checks were done on his caregiver and we let him down."

She also said the case had taken too long to resolve and the man would receive a payment to "acknowledge our past failures and the abuse he suffered".

"We can only hope that the apology and payment can go some small way in helping him move forward," she said.

The man said being placed with Jordan ruined his life.

"They stole 30 years from me and I'm angry. I'm an angry man," he said.

As well as the abuse, Jordan had made him drink alcohol which started him in a spiral of addiction, health problems and serious offending and led to him serving prison sentences and attempting suicide multiple times, he said.

"I didn't enjoy abusing cops and hurting people and stealing from them, but that's what that person [Jordan] turned me into.

"It's taken my health, taken me away from my family, and I can't return to Taranaki because it reminds me of what happened.

"It's just about affected every aspect of my life."

The chance to get a decent job, own his own home and have a wife and children were also taken from him by Jordan, he said.

"All I ever wanted to do was work on a farm but how can I do that when I was abused in a cowshed?"

He said he hoped speaking up would encourage other males who had been abused to come forward.

"I saw this woman, who I have the greatest sympathy for, in the news and thought, because I'm a male I don't get anything.

"Because I don't have kids and didn't get HIV there's no Marae Investigates looking after me and pushing my case.

"I don't want this to happen to anyone else, especially young males because they find it so hard," he said.

The former Taranaki woman he refers to came forward last month after having been placed by Child, Youth and Family in the care of her uncle, a convicted rapist, who then abused her.

- © Fairfax NZ News