Kei nga waewae kaikapua, kei nga waewae kaipakiaka o te motu, rarau mai ki Te Hui. Ko Mihingarangi tenei e mihi atu nei. Ki a koutou katoa. Welcome to The Hui ` Maori current affairs for all New Zealanders. E taro ake nei. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2019 Kara huihui mai. Zania McCauley is a strong woman. She loves her kids. She loves her community and her life. But Zania knows what it's like to plummet to the depths of despair. When she was just 21, Zania had an intimate encounter which led to 16 years of physical, sexual and emotional violence. Today, in a special episode of The Hui, Zania shares her story with Aotearoa for the first time. She does so in the hope that other wahine may find the strength to end their violent relationships and make a better life. Here's Ruwani Perera with a three-part story. And a warning ` it contains language that may offend some viewers. (INDISTINCT CHATTER) This story is harrowing, filled with unimaginable violence and terror. But by the end, you will see that 44-year-old Zania McCauley is no victim. She's a wahine toa, both on and off the netball court. Zania is now a youth worker and an active member of her Kawerau community. WOMAN: On three! One, two, three! ALL: Team! She's also the woman behind one of the longest sentences for domestic violence this country has ever seen. It was like a bad nightmare you're just waiting to wake up from. That's one hell of a mistake I learnt from. What happened to Zania McCauley is like something out of a horror film. But before her nightmare began, life was looking good. Zania was a single mum, 21 years old and working hard at her full-time job. She'd even managed to buy her own home in Waiohau in the Bay of Plenty. But on a night out with friends, Zania's path crossed with this man ` Hoani John Chase. So, our first encounter was... at a party after drinking a bit. I didn't drink much, you know, but, yeah, that night I drunk a bit too much and woke up the next morning with, um,... him next to me. Mm. And you just thought it was a one-night stand and that was that? Yeah. I just thought it was... And said that. I said that to... to him. I apologised. I said, you know, 'I was really drunk.' He left without a fuss. (KNOCKS ON DOOR) But a few days later, Zania would realise her terrible mistake. John Chase arrived unannounced at her home, wearing his Mongrel Mob patch. And that's when reality hit me, like, 'Wow.' And then I just said, 'I can't have this for my son. 'I can't have this, and I don't want this in my life.' But Chase didn't take no for an answer. He returned later that night, and this time, he wouldn't be turned away. So, I opened the door, and I just went to say hi, and all I saw was this fist coming for my face. I just remember dropping back on the floor. I could hear faintly, like, all this yelling, this crying, this screaming, and my chest seemed to be sore. It was quite hard to actually know what was going on until I came to, and when I fully focused, he was just leaning on me ` had his knee pressing against my chest ` so that was the pain I could feel. All I could hear was him swearing that, 'I'm the pres of Te Teko mob. 'Nobody... 'fuckin' leaves me.' You know, 'You're just a fuckin' ho. 'If you think you're gonna go to the police, I'll fucking kill your son.' And I just couldn't` I couldn't, in my mind, gather what the hell was going on. It wasn't until I looked at my son, and then I'd seen he had, like, a sawn-off shotgun in his hand, and he had it to my son's head. It's hard to imagine how terrifying this must have been for Zania. She'd unwittingly had a drunken one-night stand with the president of the Te Teko Mongrel Mob chapter ` a violent man 13 years her senior. Within days, he announced he was moving in. As stupid as it sounds, I just... went with it, cos I didn't know what to do. Where do I go? What do I do? He's just told me he runs the town. He's going to shoot my son and myself if I say anything to the police. But a few weeks later, a desperate Zania did just that, having a confidential chat with a police officer who played rugby with Chase. I said to him, off the record, 'I know he plays in your rugby team.' I said, 'What do I do? This is what's happened,' you know? And he said, 'It's all good, Zan. It's all good. I'll look into it. I'll have a word.' And... that was the worst thing I could have ever done. It got back to him? Yup. So, it got back to him. Went to training. The trainings were next door to` you know, two houses away. My heart pumped as the lights flicked off, cos I knew that was home time. And you could hear his vehicle... screeching all the way around... the block to the house. And I was just, like, so shit-scared. And I knew. I knew it was what I said. And I was thinking, 'Do I stand still? Do I run? 'What am I gonna do?' And before I could even have time to process, like, what's going to happen, he was at the gate. And so I said to my son, 'Run to Nan's. Run to Nan's.' SOFTLY: Cos I didn't know what was gonna happen. No! And I tried to lock the door. But it was too late. (ALARMING MUSIC) He just started fully punching, kicking, swearing. 'You fuckin' nark. You...' everything.. He just... (SNIFFS) And he picked me up, and then he threw me straight out the door. I was lying on the ground, you know. I could feel the glass in me, and all I could think about was where my son was... and trying to get my son. Speaking out would cost Zania dearly. First, John Chase got her son out of the house, then he subjected Zania to the most unimaginable acts of brutality for days on end. Just made me sit on the chair and duct-taped my feet to the chair. Arms behind the chair, duct-taped, and I just sat there. And just heard all the abuse, all the names. 'This is what you get for being a nark. This is what you get.' I didn't eat. I didn't drink. I lost count of days. I didn't even know what day it was. I pissed myself. I shit myself on the chair. And he'd only untie you to rape you? Yup. Pretty much. I only got untied when he wanted a bit, so... Sometimes didn't even make it to the room. It was there on the floor, and I'd just get tied back up. Next ` Zania McCauley's life is in grave danger. Then I went from getting hit to a rope getting tied around me, and he tried to drag me behind the car. 'Waiohau is a small community in the Bay of Plenty. 'This is the house that Zania McCauley shared with John Chase. 'It's been years since she's been back.' So much of the violence and abuse happened here. You've got neighbours all around you here. Did anyone do or say anything? They would've heard stuff. Yeah, they did, but not really. For them, I think they were just too afraid and didn't know how to help. But these were your relatives, your own whanau? Yeah. But I don't blame nobody, nobody at all. Zania had gone from single mother with a good job and her own home to a prisoner of the violent and controlling Mongrel Mob president John Chase. It was a far cry from her upbringing. Her family were afraid of Chase, and one by one, they disappeared from her life. I pretty much lost everything within two years. Everything just went. Because of him. You were all on your own? I was. Her story has all the hallmarks of a classic case of domestic violence. Zania was beaten into submission, controlled and isolated from her family, friends and community. It got to the point where I couldn't even take my son to school, because his dad lived down the street that I had to walk him. He didn't like me talking to my son's dad in any way. I had to finish work. Because I was in customer service, I had to talk to people. But he didn't like that. He didn't like me talking to people. I would get timed when I went to the shop. He would check my account. He would take the mileage too, so he would know how far I went. So the mileage always got checked before I left. Chase was so consumed by jealousy, he made Zania get his initials tattooed on her neck ` marking her as his property. Speaking to another man would set him off in a rage. One such occasion had near-fatal consequences for Zania when she was seen talking to a man while picking up Chase from the gang pad. And he just walked out, swore at me ` 'what the F am I talking to him for?' And that was it. It just flipped. Then I went from getting hit to a rope getting tied around me. And he tried to drag me behind the car. But I managed, as I fell, to unravel, and the rope was off. And he tried to reverse back on to me, which I dodged the car, and I just ran for it. Zania was a broken woman. The rapes and beatings would continue for 16 years. (SOMBRE MUSIC) The one person she believed could've rescued her from her nightmare was her beloved dad. But he'd passed away suddenly when she was 17. Chase even used this tragedy against her, forcing Zania to marry him on the anniversary of her father's death. Marriage is a sacred thing for people. That was sacred for me. My marriage was a horror story, you know? (SOMBRE MUSIC CONTINUES) And it's sad, cos he took that from me. He took my special day. Despite never wanting to have children with Chase, Zania eventually fell pregnant. While she adores her twin daughters, River and Rain, finding out she was bringing two innocent lives into such a violent home was heartbreaking. It shocked me. It shocked me to find out I was pregnant, and I was so, so... saddened that... I'm going to bring this child into this life. And I love children, but I just... didn't want this child to go through this life. And to my shock, I found out a month before having them I was having twins. So that made it even harder. It wasn't that I didn't want them. It was that I didn't want to bring them into... my world... and what was happening. So, I had my twins on my birthday, just before midnight. When River come out, she wasn't breathing. She was the smallest of them. And the doctor said, 'You have a girl, but she's not breathing.' And he was in the room, and he told the doctor to shove her back up my arse,... because he didn't want a girl. He missed the whole fact that the doctor just said she's not breathing. (SNIFFS) So, this was the place you called home with him? Yeah, this was. The birth of Zania's twins was traumatic, but she did her best to protect them from the horror of their father's behaviour. This is where we pretty much lived, in this part of the house, because he would take control of that. Or we just didn't wanna be near him. 'It's also the room where Zania tried to end it all.' You tried to kill yourself here? Yep. And my girls were asleep, and I tried to OD on the La-Z-Boy that was in between their beds. One of my twins, River, woke up, and I was crying, and I had just put the pills in my mouth. And she just looked at me and said, 'Mumma, have you got a maemae?' Which means, you know, am I sick? Am I sore? And I just shook my head, cos I had the tablets still dissolving in my mouth, and... she just climbed on top of me out of her bed. And it was about 2 in the morning or so. She just hugged me, and she said, 'I'll look after you, Mumma. She was only 5. TEARFULLY: You know, for a child to reach out... that just woke me up big time. And that's when I realised I can't do this any longer, and I'm gonna fight for my life. Coming up after the break ` Zania McCauley finally stands up to her tormentor. And he said, 'What the fuck did you just say?' So, how did Zania McCauley move from her brutal past to the woman she is today? After her daughter interrupted a fifth suicide attempt, Zania hit rock-bottom. She enrolled herself on to a suicide prevention course and reached out to her whanau. I went over everything that I wanted to see in my life and how it was going to help me beat what I was going through. I called it Step Up for Life Whanau. So, the 'Step Up' stood for support, talk, encourage, praise, unite and protect. Those words, those are what I felt I needed in my life to help me get through what I was going through, to help build me up. And that meant putting my trust... back in people. Supported by whanau and police, a much stronger and empowered Zania was ready to stand up to the man who had raped and beaten her for 16 years. I had gotten home, and he was in a rage once again, because I took too long. And... I just said to myself, 'This is it. 'This is the time. This is where I put my foot down.' I told the girls to go to their room, close their door. And I just turned around, and I said, 'You need to shut the fuck up.' And, whoa, you should have seen his face. Like, I wasn't even prepared for it, but I just felt 'now or never'. And I thought, 'This is do or die. 'I'm going to die today, right outside my girls' room.' That's all that was going through my head. And he just walked right up into my face, and he said, 'What the fuck did you just say?' And I just said, 'You heard.' And he goes, 'You fuckin' think you're tough, bitch?' I said, 'I'm not tough; I'm fuckin' over it. 'Do your worst, 'because I'm ready.' And then he just went off in a rage. But for me, it was like,... 'Whoa. 'Is he actually scared now?' Because he didn't touch me. Chase drove off into the night to get a gun. Zania called police, who arrested him on weapons charges and put him behind bars. But for Zania, that taste of freedom was short-lived. Police didn't have enough evidence to keep him there, and Chase walked out of court a free man. So, he walked out the same door I walked out. He stood there and looked at a policeman and said, 'Can I talk to my wife now? You must have been terrified. I was. If a car came past, I was gonna walk out and step in front of it. And from that time, I thought, 'This is never gonna end.' Despite a protection order, Chase began a campaign of stalking and harassment. He would go past my work. He would give me fingers. He would threaten me ` everything he could think of. He was still fully succeeding to scare me, to hurt me, to ruin my life when he wasn't even in it any more. Even the house she'd worked so hard for was set on fire. But this only made Zania more determined to bring him to justice. She went back to police, and this time, she told them everything ` all 16 years of her living hell. Crown Prosecutor Anna Pollett took on Zania's case. Where does this case sit on a scale of one to 10, with 10 being the worst? Uh, certainly a 10. I can tell you this level of offending is one of the most serious of its kind I've seen. What I find also remarkable is that Zania endured this 16 years of very` very serious... sexual and physical violence. It's the most serious I've seen where a victim is still here to tell her story. Her case was based on mainly circumstantial evidence. It would rely heavily on Zania's testimony, which would be crucial for a conviction. It was harrowing in its detail,... but she remained... so strong in... throughout giving her evidence, and she could recall it in great detail. I went in there feeling... 20% chance of him getting jail. You know, the whole court trial was hard to get people to speak up, because of their own fear of their own safety, I suppose. But Zania would get justice. The judge found John Chase guilty on 28 charges, sentencing him to 18 years in prison. It's one of the longest terms for domestic violence this country has ever seen. You said in court, 'I am going to live the best damn life ever. 'I am free of you.' Yeah. How did that feel saying that? It felt great. I was happy with that. Zania says the Mongrel Mob also took action. Chase was de-patched and banned from joining any Bay of Plenty chapter. And local members say she has their full support. You've gotta be strong as to do something like what she's gone and done. I told her, like, 'You're sort of an idol now for other ladies to look up to and speak out 'of these sort of violences going on within families.' You know, it's not just Mob families. It's normal families, you know? Domestic violence comes from normal families. What did you think of his behaviour? Oh, I didn't even think a human could even act like that, you know, towards our women, anyways. You're supposed to love our women, you know, treat them right. Zania is now focused on helping her son and daughters heal from the trauma of their childhood. But the horrors of the past are not easy to erase. I was scared of him coming out. I still have nightmares, you know, of the day he comes out or just him breaking out or him getting early release or bail. I do, but those are just dreams for me now. I wake up thankful that he is in there. I wake up thankful that I've got this life now. (GENTLE MUSIC) This life includes a new career working with at-risk youth, grandchildren, and a new partner with whom she's built a stable and loving home. I'm a stronger woman now. I've got stronger support around me. I've got a great family. I've got a great partner, a partner you dream of. I'm living the life I should've lived... 18 years ago. There are other women that are watching this, Zania, who are in exactly the same situation as you. What are your words to them? Stay strong. If you've got that will to be in your children's future, have a better future, just stay strong. Reach out. You need to talk. You need to reach out to your family, to other people, to whoever will listen. I'll listen. (TATTOO MACHINE WHINES) (SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY) Mm. Yep. Today, Zania McCauley is covering the scars of almost two decades of abuse. It's a reminder of the courage it took for her to survive and a symbol of hope for the future. So, the bottom manaia here is a reference to your guardian that's in front of you, that's guarding your journey ahead. And the mangopare pattern at the back is facing your past. Thank you. You're welcome. (CHUCKLES) So, you, Zania McCauley, stayed strong, and John Chase lost. Yep. He did lose, big time. Are you free now? Yep. I'm free, and I love it. Na Ruwani Perera tera purongo, and it was produced by Sarah Hall. We wish to thank Zania for bravely sharing her story. Ka nui te mihi atu ki a koe e te tuakana. If you or anyone you know is a victim of domestic abuse and is in immediate danger, you should call 111. If you need support with your situation, contact Shine on 0508 744 633. Kua hikina te hui mo tenei ra. Pai marire ki a tatou katoa. Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2019 ALL: He mea tautoko na Te Mangai Paho. The Hui is made with support from NZ On Air.