Help for youth

Press, 30 September 1988, Page 1

Help for youth

By

BRENDON BURNS,

political reporter Psychiatric treatment will be recommended for the son of a Philippines Embassy officer who is to return home without prosecution after molesting a Wellington girl, aged seven. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Marshall, said yesterday that the Aquino Government had not agreed to the request that diplomatic immunity be waived. The youth, aged 19, was to be returned home as soon as possible. Mr Marshall said there was no further action New Zealand could take in “this sad affair.” The Philippines Ambassador to New Zealand, Mr Eduardo Montilla, said he would recommend that the youth receive psychiatric treatment. “Something is wrong with him,” he said. He expected the youth, a son

.of the embassy’s property administration officer, would leave within the .next.two days, as soon as he could be put on a flight to Manila. The father will be reposted by the end of the year, after winding up his affairs in Wellington. Mr Montilla said the decision not to waive diplomatic immunity had been taken by his country’s Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Mr Raul Manglapus. He said it met the wishes of the mother of the girl, who wanted “to get the boy out of •Wellington as quickly as possible.” The family of the girl had befriended the youth six weeks ago, said her mother, identified only as “Kate.” Sexual abuse had occurred on three occasions, the daughter claimed, including once when the 1 youth babysat the children of the family.