Brian Henry: Lawyer on the former Gloriavale members planning to sue the Crown for negligence

Several former Gloriavale workers are planning to sue the Crown for negligence.

Members of the group have accused public servants of knowing about the slave labour within the community - and refusing to do anything about it.

Lawyer Brian Henry says these public servants knew about the witnesses who were interviewed and the allegations.

"You just don't go to the potential criminal and say - did you steal that? And if he says no, he'll walk away. You actually go evaluate the evidence and look around further."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now some Gloria of our leaders are preparing to sue
the crown for failing to protect them while they were
living in the remote Christian community. They are claiming that
some public servants knew that GLORIAVL was using slave labor,
but those public servants failed to do anything about it.
Lawyer Brian Henry is working on this case and is
with us. Now, Hi, Brian, hi, how are you? Well?
Thank you? Who are these public servants?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Well, that's the question. We don't know because you can't
get it under the Official Information Act, So we have
had to take court proceedings to identify the names of
who they are. And also we need to know a
little bit about what they knew. And they didn't know,
you know, they had the knowledge.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
Do you at least know which department they work for?

Speaker 2 (00:45):
They were in a all of government committee, so they're
in a whole raft of departments. Okay, haven'ted that in
twenty fifteen and as far as my people see, they
did nothing.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
And how do you know that they knew that there
was slave labor?

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Well, they got a lot of complaints from people who
will be my plaintiffs, and we've also got our hands
on a report that was prepared in the Department of
Internal Affairs. It's been redacted, so we don't know everything,
but we do know and we can see enough to
know that they knew about the witnesses interviewed, they knew

(01:24):
about the allegations, and they actually had a copy of
what we believed, because you can actually see slavery in
what we believe if you read it properly.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Okay, Now, obviously it's one thing to have allegations late.
It's another to know for a fact that this is
going on. Which of the two is what they were
dealing with.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Well, we believe that when someone comes and makes a
serious complaint that is called a witness, and when that
witness gets evidence in court, that is evidence, and that's
how things are judge. You don't just sit back and
get a letter from what we say are the slave

(02:04):
masters saying oh no, no, no, we don't do that
and just simply say I know, we believe the leaders.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
I mean, obviously, even if there's an alligation, right, there's
an allegation, and certainly if there are a number of
allegations that will liter each other, there becomes a responsibility,
doesn't there to investigate? Did they fail to do that
as well.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
Well, what we're saying is they had enough. They are
required to investigate. What they did was just entirely inadequate.
You just don't go to the potential criminal and say, oh,
did you steal that safe, and if he says no,
walk away, you actually go and evaluate the evidence, look
around further, look at the circumstances. And the big thing

(02:46):
is what we believe is their community rules. It's not
a religious document. It is the community rules, and it
talks about keeping them ignorant, keeping them unworldly. And you're
talking about education ago and it teaches that you only
teach the kids and not to work in the community.
And you know, the education stuff around them is utterly wawful.

(03:09):
And just to keep on your same, I do know
the government's got a process in place about whether or
not they can keep being in school. Yeah, but they're
entitled to have a proper process. So Erica Stanton seems
to be doing the job as far as I'm concerned,
pretty well too, pretty impressive. Brian.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
Listen, if you guys were to win this, are you're
looking for compo?

Speaker 2 (03:30):
Yes, how much? Well, there's general damages because if you're
enslaved and people know you're enslaved, it just becomes a
what is the going tariff for slavery? Well, at the moment,
I haven't worked to figure out yet, but we will
work out a figure and it'll be quite large.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
Yeah. Well, you know you've got to start large because
it only comes down from there. Brian, Thank you very
much appreciated, and best of luck with that, Brian. Henry
Gloria ails Lawyer.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
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