Politicians have backed calls from a Rotorua District Court judge to look into what went wrong with a teenager who committed two violent aggravated robberies while in Child, Youth and Family's care.
Sonny Tearamoana Tonihi, 16, was jailed for four years and four months after admitting two charges of aggravated robbery
and being found guilty of intentionally causing grievous bodily harm.
Tonihi's counsel, Mary-Ann McCarty, told the court Tonihi had been in the custody of Child, Youth and Family since he was 4 but was living on the streets at the time of the aggravated robberies last August.
He had taken pure methamphetamine, or P, before committing the offences.
In the first incident, armed with an iron bar, he robbed a service station, and in the second he robbed a superette, bashing two shop workers with a piece of wood.
Judge Phillip Cooper recommended an inquiry into the teenager's care.
Ms McCarty said Child, Youth and Family "failed him miserably".
National's spokeswoman on social services, Katherine Rich, said it was unusual for a judge to make such a comment and she hoped the Government would seriously look into the case.
But she said Child, Youth and Family did not commit aggravated robberies and could not work miracles when a family had abandoned a child.
"I don't blame Child, Youth and Family for his offending but we need to make sure everything that could have been done had been done, because the department had been working with this child for most of his life."
Rotorua MP Steve Chadwick said any review should not look at what was wrong with Child, Youth and Family, but what went wrong in Tonihi's life.
Mrs Chadwick, who said she knew Tonihi's family, suspected the teenager was a victim of a generation that lacked social service support in the areas of child abuse and family violence.
"Where the heck was his family? They deserted him. Agencies like Family Start were not around when he was a little boy," she said.
Child, Youth and Family social work operations acting general manager Shannon Pakura said the department took the issues raised by Judge Cooper seriously.
"The regional manager will be considering a course of action."
- NZPA
