Is it possible in the 21st century to be a child abuser without committing a crime? Terrible as it might sound, John* - now aged 53 - discovered it is when
he reported his foster mum to Auckland police this year.
He was 12-years-old and she was 37 when she first took him into her bed in 1977. She would spend the next five years having sex with her young Maori foster son. The abuse wreaked emotional havoc on John, yet, in the eyes of the law, his foster mum did nothing wrong.