Family members were led screaming from the Wellington District Court yesterday and a social worker was threatened after a married couple were jailed for abuse and cruelty to their adopted children.
The pastor and his wife were sentenced to two years' jail for assaulting eight children adopted or fostered from Samoa
and for cruelty and neglect against six of them.
They were given permission to apply for home detention.
Slavery charges against the couple, who have name suppression to protect the victims, were dropped last month when they pleaded guilty to 22 charges of assault, including assault with a weapon, and cruelty.
A police summary of facts said children aged between 9 and 16 were beaten with weapons including a vacuum cleaner pipe, brooms, high-heeled shoes and a belt.
When they were left with noticeable bruises, they were kept home from school.
Six girls were neglected to the point where, towards the middle of last year, they were denied breakfast and rarely had school lunches. Dinner, in Judge Craig Thompson's words, was "barely adequate at best."
Even less excusable was the fact that the girls were deprived of hygiene including either tampons or showers, Judge Thompson said.
"They were riddled with lice, I am told."
After Judge Thompson handed down his sentence, the clearly shocked couple, who had sat throughout the four-hour sentencing, kissed each other on the lips and were led away separately by police.
After a stunned silence among more than 60 family members in the gallery, a woman believed to be the daughter of the wife burst into hysterical screaming.
Others were crying and one teenage girl shouted, "You stay away from our family," and threatened a Department of Child, Youth and Family worker on the way out of the courtroom.
Defence lawyers Fuimaono Tuiasau and Robert Lithgow had argued that the couple lived beyond their means, with up to 15 children in their care at one time and extensive responsibilities to extended family and the church.
However, Judge Thompson said the neglect was "well beyond the point of meagre resources spread thinly."
- NZPA
