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Former Gloriavale farm manager John Ready, pictured in Greymouth in September 2020.
A former Gloriavale Christian Community farm manager, who now lives in Timaru, has admitted hitting two 11-year-old boys several times with a metal fence standard as he believed they had disobeyed him.
John Ready ordered his victims to face a wall and raise their hands before he struck them “one after another in the area around their bottoms with the metal break fence standard”, according to the summary of facts presented in the Timaru District Court on Tuesday.
“He hit the victims several times in a downward motion,” the summary, presented after Ready pleaded guilty to two charges of assault with a weapon, says.
The victims were left with bruising where they were hit and “they found it painful to walk”.
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The summary said: “When the defendant had finished hitting the victims, he told them ‘you do what I say, when I say, and how I say to do it and don’t you dare think you can disobey me and get away with it’.”
Ready, 45, was 37 when the assaults on the boys, who had been sent to work on the Gloriavale dairy farm after school, occurred.
The summary said the boys were told their job was to keep the cows moving into the dairy shed, and they were given separate places to stand by Ready.
After a while one of the boys went to where the other was and could see he was having trouble so decided to stay and help.
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The Gloriavale Christian Community, which is in the Haupiri area on the West Coast.
Ready, after a short time, came out of the milking shed and began pushing the cows into the race.
“The defendant then walked over to where the victims were standing and told them to come with him.”
Ready took the victims out of the yard and around to a wall outside where the assaults occurred.
Ready said he couldn’t recall the exact assault, but accepted what the victims said, the court heard.
Judge Jim Large, in remanding Ready on bail for sentencing on June 13, also ordered restorative justice be explored with one of the victims, who was also now living outside Gloriavale.