Report of the Special Committee on Moral Delinquency in Children and Adolescents

(1) Sensational Press Reports

In the second week of July 1954 various newspapers throughout the Dominion featured reports of proceedings in the Magistrate's Court at Lower Hutt against youths charged with indecent assault upon, or carnal knowledge of, girls under 16 years of age.

The prosecuting officer was reported as saying that:

The police investigations revealed a shocking degree of immoral conduct which spread into sexual orgies perpetrated in several private homes during the absence of parents, and in several second rate Hutt Valley theatres, where familiarity between youths and girls was rife and commonplace.

He also stated that:

... in many cases the children came from excellent homes.

A few weeks previously reports had appeared in the press of statements made by a Child Welfare Officer and a Stipendiary Magistrate that juvenile delinquency (meaning delinquency in general and not only sexual delinquency) had more than doubled in recent years, and that in many cases the offenders came from:

... materially good homes where they are well provided for.

Such statements naturally provoked a good deal of private and public comment throughout the Dominion. The anxiety of parents deepened, and one leading newspaper asserted editorially that:

It is probably quite safe to assert that nothing that has occurred in the Dominion for a long time has caused so much public dismay and so much private worry as the disclosure of moral delinquency among children and adolescents.

There is room for difference of opinion as to whether or not the ensuing public discussion of sexual offending was desirable. On the one hand it provoked many conversations on the subject between children themselves and a noticeable desire to purchase newspapers on the way to and from school. On the other hand the focusing of attention on the existence of the peril to school children caused many parents, temporarily at any rate, to take a greater interest in the training and care of their children than they might otherwise have taken; it caused some heads of schools to arrange for sex instruction; and it also resulted in a public demand that something should be done to bring about a better state of morality in the community.

Following hard upon the newspaper reports of these cases in the Hutt Valley there was the news that two girls, each aged about 16 years had been arrested in Christchurch on a charge of murdering the mother of one of them. It soon became widely known (and this fact was established at their subsequent trial) that these girls were abnormally homosexual in behaviour.

There were also published in the press extracts from the annual report of the Justice Department to the effect that sexual crime in New Zealand was, per head of population, half as much again as the sexual crime in England and Wales. The reasons why the Committee does not accept this statement at its face value are stated later under Section IV (2).

(2) Press Reports from Overseas

In view of the fact that the happenings in the Hutt Valley were reported in all New Zealand newspapers, and by many newspapers in Australia and Great Britain, the Committee points out that the increase of sexual delinquency is not confined to any one district or any one country.

It cannot be too strongly asserted that the great majority of the young people of the Hutt Valley are as healthy-minded and as well behaved as those in other districts, whether in New Zealand or elsewhere. It just happened that, through the voluntary confession of one girl in Petone, many cases were immediately brought to the knowledge of the police.

In the absence of comparable statistics from other countries, the Committee can merely quote from some of the reports received in New Zealand at about the same time that the Hutt Valley cases were reported.

(a) England

In Monmouthshire last year there was an increase of 88 per cent in sexual offences. The biggest increases recorded were for indecent assault on females-132 in 1953, compared with 75 in 1952-and for offences against girls under 16 years of age. In his annual report the Chief Constable states that this shocking record is a further indication of the general lowering of moral standards ...-The "Police Review" (London), 19 February 1954.

(b) New South Wales

POLICE UNCOVER WILD TEENAGE SEX ORGIES

Detectives have uncovered evidence of an amazing sex cult in which a bodgie "high priest" and a number of pretty teenagers indulged in wild orgies in a Sydney suburb.

It is alleged that the "high priest" made the girls participate in lewd rituals, swear a profane oath on "the bodgies' bible" and worship at a "bodgies' altar".

Following these sensational allegations, four men were arrested. Police expect to arrest another seven. Disappearance of the 15-year-old daughter of a respected Erskineville family started the police investigation which uncovered the sex cult. Both the girl and the "high priest" undressed, and, as she lay on a bed, he compelled her to engage in grossly obscene acts with him.

Then, while the "high priest" performed a gross act of indecency, the girl swore the "widgies' oath" on the "bodgies' bible".-Sydney "Truth" 27 June 1954.

(c) South Australia

ADELAIDE POLICE SEIZE TEENAGERS IN SWIFT RAIDS

In a series of lightning raids Port Adelaide police have arrested six teenagers who they claim are members of a sex cult. Vice Squad detectives say the cult indulged in sex and drug parties. The Port Adelaide Police Chief Inspector, G.E. Mensfort, said that when the cases came to Court he suspected revelations similar to those in the Hutt Valley, which recently shocked New Zealand. A number of teenage youths have already appeared in Port Adelaide Police and Juvenile Courts on carnal knowledge charges ...-Telegram in the "Dominion", 30 July 1954.

(d) London

MANY GIRLS IN BAD COMPANY

One black spot in an otherwise more optimistic report by the Police Commissioner on crime in London is a disturbing increase in the number of 17-and 18-year-old girls who are coming under the notice of policewomen on their beat, says the Daily Mirror.-N.Z.P.A. to "Evening Post", 2 September 1954.

(3) A World-wide Problem

There have been waves of sexual crime in various countries at various times.

Juvenile delinquency itself has been the subject of much research (especially in the United States) during the past fifty years. But although such offences as indecent exposure and sexual assault by juniors have been included in published figures, no special mention has been found by this Committee of the aspect of sexual delinquency now being discussed in New Zealand. What is entirely new in New Zealand (and probably in other places, too) is the attitude of mind of some young people to sexual indulgence with one another, their planning and organization of it, and their assumption that when they consent together they are not doing anything wrong.

Clergymen and publicists in various parts of the world have been declaiming about illicit sexual practices and their effects on young people, but this is the first time that any Government has set up a Committee to sift the available data on sexual misbehaviour with a view to finding the cause and suggesting a remedy.

While this report was being typed there appeared in the local newspapers the following telegram despatched from London on September 14:

INQUIRY INTO VICE WAVE IN BRITAIN

A Government committee, including three women, is to open tomorrow a searching probe into Britain's homosexuals and prostitutes, to decide whether the country's vice laws should be changed.

The Government's decision to set up the committee followed public alarm at the vice wave in Britain, highlighted by a steep increase in homosexual offences.

The Home Secretary, Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, has charged the committee with considering the law and practice relating to homosexual offences and the treatment of persons convicted of such offences, and offences against the criminal law in connection with prostitution and solicitation for immoral purposes. According to the police, prostitutes in London alone have soared to a record of more than 10,000. Convictions for sexual offences exceed 5,000 a year, compared with the immediate pre-war total of 2,300. The figures for male homosexual offences have bounded even more sharply.

The extent of juvenile immorality in New Zealand may have been greatly magnified abroad. If the good name of this Dominion has been sullied by these reports, the Committee hopes that any damage may be repaired by setting out the facts in their true perspective and by demonstrating that we can, and will, do something in the interests of morality which may also give a lead to other countries.

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On 23 July 1954 a Special Committee was appointed by the Government with the following Order of Reference:

To inquire into and to report upon conditions and influences that tend to undermine standards of sexual morality of children and adolescents in New Zealand, and the extent to which such conditions and influences are operative, and to make recommendations to the Government for positive action by both public and private agencies, or otherwise.

The Committee held its first meeting on Tuesday, 27 July, to determine points of procedure and to make arrangements to hear all who desired to make submissions. There were placed before the Committee files of letters which had been written to Ministers of the Crown, and hundreds of newspaper clippings, relating to this topic. Some days were occupied in the sorting and reading of this material in anticipation of the task which lay ahead.

The Committee commenced the hearing of evidence at Wellington on Tuesday, 3 August. It sat in Christchurch for the convenience of people in the South Island on 31 August and 1 September, and in Auckland from 6 September to 10 September.

Altogether 145 persons (18 on more than one occasion), appearing either in a representative capacity or as private individuals, were heard. In addition, 203 written submissions were made by interested organizations and private persons, and a large volume of relevant correspondence, addressed direct to the Committee, was considered. A list of the persons who appeared before the Committee and of the organizations or societies which made either written or oral representations is attached.

It should here be observed that the Committee, not having the powers of a Commission of Inquiry, could not summon witnesses before it. All officers of the Crown, and all public agencies from whom information was sought, were helpful. Much of the evidence, however, was secondary or hearsay evidence. The Committee had not the power to trace some of the stated facts back to their source.

It was thought undesirable to interview any of the children involved in recent happenings. Reliance had to be placed on information regarding each individual made available by the police and Child Welfare Officers, and, in some cases, by the heads of their respective schools. Similarly, there was much secondary evidence of indecent behaviour and of other facts said to have been derived from reliable sources. The absence of direct evidence on some of these matters, however, did not prevent the Committee from looking at the problem in its broad general aspects, and from reaching conclusions which could not be affected by a closer scrutiny of some of the individual matters narrated to the Committee.

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(1) The Hutt Valley Cases

Before proceeding to examine the extent of sexual laxity among children and adolescents it is convenient to narrate the factual happenings which caused this problem to assume such large proportions in the public mind in July and August last.

On the 20th day of June 1954 information was sought from the police concerning the whereabouts of a girl 15? years of age who was missing from her home at Petone. A few hours later this girl called at the Petone Police Station. She stated that, being unhappy at home with her stepfather, she had, since the previous Christmas, been a member of what she called a "Milk Bar Gang" which (in her own words) met "mostly for sex purposes"; she had "become tired of the sex life", was worried about the future of its younger members, and desired the police to break up the gang. She gave the names of other members of the gang to the police. By interviewing persons named by this girl, and then interviewing others whom they in turn named, the police were able, without difficulty, to obtain admissions and evidence of sexual misconduct by 65 children.

The procedure followed was for the parents to be visited at their residences by a constable in plain clothes, told the nature of the inquiry, and informed of the desire of the police to interview the children at the police station. When a parent and child attended at the time appointed the parent was informed that, either through a sense of shame or fear of the parent, the child might not make a full disclosure of the facts known to her. Some parents consented to their children being interviewed alone; others desired, and were allowed, to remain for the questioning. After each interview the parents were permitted to read the statements of their children and to sign them before the children themselves were asked to sign.

The disclosures thus made, immediately recalled certain similar occurrences in the same district during October/November 1952. It speedily became apparent that the 1954 situation was much more serious in that there were approximately three times as many children dealt with and that three of the children had been involved in the earlier trouble.

For purposes of comparison the Hutt Valley cases are set out as follows:

1952 1954

Girls involved 6 17

Girls pregnant 2 ...

Boys involved 11 37

Boys over eighteen ... 5

Charges laid 61 107

Committed to care of State 3 girls 5 girls

1 boy

Placed under supervision 3 girls 4 girls

7 boys 7 boys

Admitted to probation 1 boy 6 boys

Admonished and discharged or otherwise dealt with 3 30

Dismissed in Children's Court ... 3

Acquitted in Magistrate's Court ... 1

Acquitted in Supreme Court ... 3

(One boy appeared in both Supreme Court and Magistrate's Court; thus showing 60 persons dealt with.)

(2) Cases in Other Districts

It cannot be supposed that sexual misbehaviour was confined to the Hutt district. Similar environmental conditions obtain in other districts. It was reliably stated in evidence at Wellington that if a girl elsewhere were to carry her story to the police similar revelations would be made there.

In Auckland matters came to the knowledge of the Committee which do cause grave concern. Here again the Committee was not engaged on a fact-finding mission, but was seeking to evaluate the evidence in a broad way.

It appears that, a few weeks before the Hutt cases were reported, the headmaster of an intermediate school informed the police of a case of theft of money by a schoolboy who was found to have ￡22 in his wallet. In the course of their inquiries into this the police were started on a train of investigation into sexual practices of children on their way home from school, at the homes of parents, and elsewhere. As a result, about 40 boys and girls in the 12-15-year-old group (but including also a girl of 9 years) were implicated. In addition to this, there were two cases before the Court in which several girls had given evidence of their agreement to sexual intercourse with older men. One of the accused men has recently been sentenced to a term of imprisonment, while the other is still awaiting trial. As this latter case, and also a charge of murder against a boy aged 14, are still sub judice, the Committee is unable to comment on any of the factors involved.

This much may, however, be said that, from the police, welfare officers, a headmaster, and social workers in Auckland, the Committee learned of an accumulation of sordid happenings occurring within a short space of time which people who regard themselves as men of the world could scarcely believe possible in this Dominion.

No submissions were presented to the Committee that sexual offending by juveniles in the South Island had increased to any alarming extent. Such cases as were mentioned to the Committee followed previously recognized patterns.

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