Table of Contents
Auckland Women’s Corrections Officer Anika Perese chipped a bone in her ankle at work. “She fell to the floor, landed on her back and called for help.” But that help wasn’t offered. A nurse said the ankle was probably sprained and for her to elevate it.
Corrections did not directly answer questions about why Perese was left unattended for so long and why she wasn’t taken to an emergency clinic or an ambulance called.
When Perese died a year later, the family made it known to Corrections that they didn’t want anyone involved in the workplace bullying present at the funeral. But some turned up anyway.
The same manager allegedly confronted a friend of Perese’s, also a Corrections officer, at the funeral, wanting to know why the officer had said certain staff weren’t welcome and saying she would “deal with her [at the prison]”.
[Advocate Allan Halse] witnessed the incident. “I’ve never seen anybody with such a lack of insight who would do… that at a funeral.
“[The officer] was already emotional … she was bawling her eyes out when [the manager] had a go at her.” […]
In an interview in 2020, [Helena Chase] told Stuff that bullying at Auckland Women’s Prison wrecked her mental and physical health and left her on the verge of suicide. She has since reached a confidential settlement with Corrections.
Helena Chase was one of multiple current and former Corrections staff who described a toxic bullying culture they said department bosses had failed to properly address.
Several people spoken to for the 2020 article said they had been driven out of the job, citing verbal and physical abuse, being excluded and ignored, humiliated in front of prisoners and being set up to fail with impossible tasks. […]
[Perese] had medical certificates saying she needed more time to heal, but Corrections was asking her to attend an appointment with a medical specialist of its choosing, as well as mediation.
Halse says this was the department “upping the ante” to either get Perese back to work, or medically retire her.
It made a “without prejudice” offer for a medical retirement payout (a legal term to describe communications designed to resolve a dispute, but which cannot later be referred to in court). Perese rejected it shortly before her death.
Stuff
Read more here. Discuss it on the BFD.
