Minister demands fresh facts in teen abuse case

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

Associate Immigration Minister Damien O'Connor has called for yet more information before deciding whether to block the expulsion of a sexually abused Sri Lankan girl.

He asked officials yesterday for what a spokeswoman called "fairly extensive" information after reading a report overnight on the 16-year-old girl's condition from an independent Auckland psychiatrist commissioned by the Immigration Service.

The spokeswoman said he needed the new data before deciding how to respond to a plea from the girl's two lawyers to let her stay in New Zealand on the basis of the report from former Starship Children's Health specialist Dr Craig Immelman.

This was likely to take a couple of days, the spokeswoman said.

The lawyers say Dr Immelman's report confirms an assessment by the girl's regular psychiatrist that she is not fit to travel, although the latest opinion appears to be mainly founded on her frail physical condition from lack of eating.

She is understood to have coped well with coming to New Zealand, and was looking forward to starting a new school before her hopes were dashed a fortnight ago when Mr O'Connor decided not to allow her to stay.

Since then, she has spent days and nights hiding under her bed at the Mangere Refugee Resettlement Centre, screaming at the approach of anyone she does not know.

The girl and her grandmother fled to New Zealand in 2002 with a concocted story about being persecuted in Sri Lanka's civil war, rather than disclosing what a Crown lawyer accepted in court were years of sexual abuse by her male relatives.

Mr O'Connor refused to intervene earlier, and the High Court rejected a subsequent appeal, because they arrived illegally and have been denied refugee status by the Refugee Status Appeals Authority.

An Auckland woman who has befriended the pair, Joy Morrison, said yesterday the girl had not been told about the brief reprieve because she remained too fragile to take on board details of bureaucratic developments in her case.

"She's very frightened," Ms Morrison said. "She has not been told a lot because she can't cope with it."

The girl, whose name is suppressed, has been kept apart from others at the refugee centre for the past fortnight.

Only a handful of people she trusts are allowed near her: her grandmother, her lawyer, nurses and a young female refugee.

Ms Morrison, a fashion sales agent and volunteer for the Christian-aligned Kiwi Contax group, said the grandmother left behind a 31-year career as a dental therapist for schools and aid agencies.

She said she could find her a job in the clothing industry "next week" and that an Iraqi refugee family who were settling well in Auckland after leaving the Mangere centre were willing to provide accommodation to the pair for "as long as it takes".