Parents make plea to son

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34103, 16 March 1976, Page 1

Parents make plea to son

("Th* Press" Special Service) WANGANUI. The parents of a 16-year-old boy who fled from his Waiouru home six months ago after becoming upset at the treatment of fellow pupils at Ruapehu College. have made a special plea through “The Press” for their son to contact them. Rex Douglas Osborne, then a fifth-form pupil, left his home in the early hours of August 8. Two weeks ago, he tried in vain to telephone his parents at Waiouru. They had moved to Wanganui not long after the boy ran away. Last night his father pleaded: “The message we really want to get through is,

‘For God’s sake, contact home’.”

His mother said: “We don’t want to force him to come home. All we want is to contact him—to know that he is all right. He wanted us for some reason, but we fear he may not have had enough

money to call us. I am more worried now than ever before.”

Left pay

It is thought the boy caught the overnight express to Wellington when he fled. The police knew through one of his friends that he was working under an assumed name for a Christchurch carrier. When they tried to contact him he fled, leaving some pay uncollected.

His call to Waiouru two weeks ago had been made collect.

His parents allege that he ran away from home after becoming upset at treatment afforded to other pupils at the school. There had been no family argument. The family thought the boy might contact them during Christmas. His 11-year-old sister was in tears then, when she found there were no presents for him.

The family last night made a plea to “The Press” to publish their new address and telephone number, 40 Tawa Street, Wanganui, telephone 7148.

“All I want is for him to call me," said his mother.

Investigation

The race relations conciliator (Mr Harry Dansey) is in Ohakune at the invitation of the Ruapehu High- School board of governors to investigate allegations of victimisation and racial discrimination at the school. But he said he did not regard his investigation as coming under the provisions of the Race Relations Act.

; "I am acting in the role i of conciliator, and not in- ’ vestigating a complaint under i the act. No complaint from I any source has been received > at my office,” he said. I His report would go to a consultative committee set up bv the Minister of Educa- , tion (Mr Gandar) and then to the Minister.