The people who care for Sujit Kumar call him a boy, even though he is 32. The Fijian has never learned to speak and is only just learning to behave like a human. The reason, they claim, is that he spent his childhood locked in a chicken coop. Psychologists and a team of American behavioural scientists have been examining Kumar and his bizarre background which, if true, is one of the most tragic cases of child abuse in Fiji.

One of those looking after Kumar is Elizabeth Clayton, widow of New Zealand mountain climber Roger Buick, who died on Everest in 1998. She says that when she first met Kumar he pecked at his food and would crouch down as if roosting. His fingers turn inward from scratching around in the dirt, he communicates by making a rapid clicking noise with his tongue and he seems detached from much that goes on around him.

Clayton found Kumar in an old people’s home in the Fijian capital Suva. He had been tied to his bed for 20 years after being found in the middle of the road one night and taken to the home by welfare officers. She has been piecing together his past and says that when his mother committed suicide and then his father was murdered, Kumar fell into the care of his grandfather in rural Nausori outside Suva. The grandfather locked the six-year-old in a chicken coop, where he lived for years.

When he arrived at the Samabula Old People’s Home he was aggressive and the staff tied him to his bed. There he remained until Clayton heard of his plight. He still lives in the old people’s home but is no longer tied up. He has a ‘caretaker’ - a Fijian man named Drauna Matavesi - and goes to school daily in a room in a factory in suburban Suva. ‘For 30 years he hasn’t been doing anything. He didn’t know how to stand or walk,’ said Matavesi.