Gran's plea for ACC help

MIKE SCOTT/Taranaki Daily News

ROCKY TIMES: A Taranaki grandmother is battling to get help from ACC for her two grandsons, who have been sexually abused.

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A Taranaki grandmother is pleading for support for her two little sexually abused grandsons who, she says, have been abandoned by ACC.

She describes the boys as "highly sexualised" and deeply disturbed following a year of sexual and physical abuse when they were out of her care.

"They got dropped from ACC just like that," the depressed and exhausted 50-year-old woman said.

Last month they were rejected by ACC just as Safer Centre specialist sexual abuse counsellor, Bob Stevens, was gaining their trust, she said.

ACC funds counselling for sexual abuse victims who meet its criteria but the Government is tightening the criteria for free counselling, which opponents say is a bid to save money. The children's only hope for counselling is if ACC funds it.

But ACC is rejecting most of the sexual abuse claims it is receiving, incensed rape crisis advocates have told the Taranaki Daily News.

ACC has told the grandmother it believed there was no "significant" injury to the children and has offered an assessment by an independent child psychiatrist.

Mr Stevens, a former New Plymouth police detective with more than 25 years working with the sexually abused, confirmed that ACC told him he was off the case.

"I have been instructed by ACC that I should cease my work with them (the boys). But I am limited in what I can say because of privacy issues," Mr Stevens said.

However, he did reveal that he had seven sessions with the boys, whose trust he had gained.

"They were referred by police because they were having difficulty, one mute with shock," Mr Stevens said.

The grandmother asked not to be named in order to protect the identity of her grandsons, both of whom are under the age of seven.

"They have been sexually, verbally and physically abused," she said.

"When I got them back they weren't my little boys any more.

"It was one of the saddest things I've ever seen. But no-one wants to help. Bob Stevens is the only person trying to back me up."

The grandmother says the boys described to her how they had been sodomised while living in overcrowded conditions in Auckland, punched and "chucked out of windows".

New Plymouth sexual abuse team's Detective Sue Ashton confirmed that the police had begun an inquiry into the alleged abuse.

It was now paramount for the children to continue with counselling "to enable us to further our investigation", Ms Ashton said.

- © Fairfax NZ News