Former Gloriavale figure tells jury he was beaten as child worker
A former Gloriavale man whose arranged marriage featured in a national television documentary has told a jury he was repeatedly beaten as a child while working for the West Coast community.
Paul Valor, who became nationally known as the public face of Gloriavale before leaving in 2021, gave evidence on Monday at the Greymouth District Court against Vigilant Standtrue. The 43-year-old is accused of assaulting four boys with weapons including sticks, plastic pipes, broom handles, a shovel and a pitchfork while supervising them at work.
The alleged offending is said to have happened between 2001 and 2013, when the boys were aged between 8 and 13.
Valor said he worked picking up wet sphagnum moss with pitchforks in a swamp and bagging it as part of Gloriavale’s commercial moss business between the ages of 8 and 12.
He said Standtrue became stressed when large orders needed to be filled and would shout at the boys if they were not working fast enough, calling them names and threatening they would not get dinner.
Valor said Standtrue beat him about once every month or two, accusing him of not pulling his weight or slowing the team down.
“He would grab whatever came to hand in the swamp … [and] hit us with it once or if he felt a more structured discipline was needed he would bend you over a bale and give you a hiding.”
He said Standtrue beat him with pieces of alkathene pipe on about six occasions, sticks on three occasions and once used the large handle of a carved swamp axe.
“It wasn’t like he lost control and wanted to hurt me, he would explain he was teaching me a lesson and I needed to feel things in order to set the lesson in.”
Valor said Standtrue would also hit the boys with a piece of rope, the handle of a pitchfork or his hand if they became distracted.
“I would often end up with welts or bruises from it… There was one occasion, two occasions, when I had broken skin afterwards… It was expected in Gloriavale that we would be toughened up and not be babies about these sorts of things.”
Defence lawyer Stewart Sluis said Standtrue admitted getting frustrated and flicking Valor’s ear but denied beating him with weapons.
“He says you got that wrong. He’s confused about why you are making these accusations.”
Sluis asked Valor whether he was attacking people in Gloriavale to try to have the community closed down.
Valor said he had no animosity towards the idea of Gloriavale or its people, but believed the system needed to change. He said communal living and mutual support were positive, but people also needed free access to information and to live within legal guidelines.
He had clear memories of the beatings and the humiliation he felt at the time, he said.
“I don’t see [Standtrue] as a villain or a horrible person. I see him as somebody doing what he was taught to do. I’m assuming that was similar to how he was raised.”
In his opening address on Monday, Crown prosecutor Aaron Harvey said the complainants, now adults, would give evidence that Standtrue was quick to lose his temper and resort to violence as a “pretend means of discipline”.
The boys were expected to perform physically demanding work in difficult conditions and would return home bruised and in pain, he said.
Sluis, in his opening, said the alleged offending occurred when Standtrue was about 18 or 19. He said Standtrue had previously pleaded guilty to three violence charges between 2017 and 2021 while working as a teacher and garden supervisor, but denied these earlier allegations.
Standtrue previously held a limited authority to teach from the Teaching Council.
The complainants are former members of the Gloriavale community, Sluis noted.
“I’m not going to say they are lying. He is saying it did not happen and he doesn’t know why these allegations are being made. He never hit them and never intended to hit or hurt them.”
The school at Gloriavale recently lost its registration as a private school, following a string of failed audits and serious concerns.
However, the High Court has granted an interim injunction for it to remain open until the school board’s appeal against the Ministry of Education’s decision is heard.