In 1900, a Royal Commission addressed these allegations triggering criminal charges, extensive media reporting, religion-based antagonism and changes to the relevant New Zealand legislation.
A French lay-teaching order took up the offer; however, they lacked the skills to cope with the full-time care of up to 180 boys aged from seven to sixteen years.
When we consider the inmates consist of two classes—criminal and neglected or indigent children—it appears to us that a great risk of injury to one class is incurred for the sake of the other, and that the more unworthy.For many years, rumours had circulated about the poor conditions at the Stoke school.
In July 1896, St Marys Director, Brother Loetus, wrote to the Nelson Evening Mail in an attempt to placate public disquiet generated by numerous escapes from the "orphanage".
[10]: 26–28 The inspectors were guided by Brother Augustine and his colleagues who all denied that children were being imprisoned, or that prison cells even existed in the school building.
"The Manager may at his discretion punish an inmate by restraint of liberty or by restriction of diet, subject, however, to the strict observance of the following rules: - Confinement in a dark cell is forbidden.
The complaints brought by the Nelson Charitable Aid Board were:[13] The Royal Commission's report presented to Parliament in late August 1900, determined that the school building and its outdoor facilities were excellent, however there were insufficient inside baths and toilets.
It also laid much of the blame at the feet of Brothers, Wybertus and Kilian: "The flogging with supplejacks on the body, now long discontinued, verged on cruelty.
The Commission disclosed that, by 1895, Wybertus and Kilian's authority to administer punishment had been rescinded; however, they were retained on the school staff and reportedly continued to inflict cuffs, blows and kicks upon the inmates.
[15] The Stoke Royal Commission appears to have instigated one of the first Court cases where a Catholic clergyman was charged with child sexual exploitation.
Media reporting noted that the testimony against the accused had been contradictory, in one case provoking Mr Justice Edwards to remark "...[I] would not hang a cat upon it".
[19] The Nelson Evening Mail retaliated, claiming that the Roman Catholic clergy were not only spinning deceptive information, but were also adopting a militant attitude by placing "the Marist Brothers on a martyr's pedestal"[20] In 1905, while reporting the opening of a new orphanage building at Stoke, The Tablet erroneously claimed that the Royal Commission of Enquiry had "exonerated the Brothers from all allegations of cruelty" and said that "panic legislation was passed by an excited majority of law-makers who sorely needed icebags to their heads.
[22] In 1896, a diminutive ten-year-old boy, Joseph Thomas Daly, appeared in the Wellington Magistrates Court charged with the theft of a canary and some bottles.
[23] During the following decade, Joseph absconded from Stoke and Burnham Industrial Schools (1901 and 1903 respectively), was convicted and jailed for theft[24] including several counts of defrauding priests[25] and attempted suicide on three occasions.