Akila, who has been a ward of the state since April 2003 when his parents' rights were terminated, vanished from 'Ewa Beach while trick-or-treating last Halloween. He had been living in a state-licensed emergency shelter that provides care for children awaiting placement in a foster home.

His father — Solomon "Junior" Nihoa — yesterday told The Advertiser that the boy had been with family friends in 'Ewa Beach the entire time and was never in any danger. The elder Nihoa also said he had seen Akila practically every weekend.

Solomon Nihoa, a 34-year-old apprentice ironworker from Nanakuli, said he initially thought the boy was in a foster home when he saw him. He said he learned Akila had run away about two months ago.

"I know he had been missing for a while but it was very hard for me to talk to him and tell him to go back," Solomon Nihoa said.

Social workers and police in the Juvenile Services Division had tried to find Akila since the early morning hours of Nov. 1. Akila's case worker, Amy West, said police visited relatives in 'Ewa Beach and a home in Nanakuli after receiving an anonymous phone tip.

But Solomon Nihoa yesterday said no one ever contacted him or left any messages with family members. He was angry that Child Welfare Services took their search to the media Wednesday in an effort to find the boy.

"If they had contacted me and gotten ahold of me, I could have done something way earlier," he said. "This is uncalled for."

He said he returned the boy because he did not want to aggravate the situation.

"I don't want this thing to get more worse than it already is," he said.

The boy's father also complained that human-services officials released a photo not of Akila, but of his brother. Officials confirmed that, although they had no explanation how it happened, but said the two boys are 19 months apart and resemble each other.

Solomon Nihoa said Akila, the oldest of four children who are all in foster homes, told him that he was being abused by other children in the 'Ewa Beach emergency shelter.

Human-services officials said they would check on that.

"We need to know if that is happening," said Service, of the agency's Diamond Head Permanency Unit. "We need to know if Akila is very sensitive about things or if kids are hurting other kids and the shelter mom doesn't know."

Charges could be filed against the people who kept Akila in their home, said Honolulu Police Department Capt. Frank Fujii. Investigators are examining "the entire situation," he said.

Authorities also are trying to clarify the chain of events that led to Wednesday's public request for help.

Because children in foster homes are protected by confidentiality laws, human-services officials for years had operated under a system in which they had to ask a Family Court judge to open the files before they could reach out to a public audience. New administrative rules approved in December should allow them to bypass the courts.

But it took more than three months from the initial request to Family Court to this week's publication.

"It seemed like a long time to me," Service said. "But there were intervening variables. We have a whole lot of cases. We were looking for him. We weren't waiting for the judge to tell us we could."

Her office wrote to the courts on Dec. 28, 2004, but a letter alone is not enough. A motion from the state attorney general's office is needed to start the legal process, but that did not happen until Jan. 26 — more than four weeks later.

"From what I understand (DHS) had an anonymous sighting and so they said let us wait until we checked that out," said Mary Anne Magnier, supervisor of the Family Law division in the attorney general's office. "I think maybe they thought maybe we can find the boy without having to go this route."

Child Welfare Services did receive a tip on Jan. 18 that he was in Nanakuli, but didn't find him.

On Jan. 26, the attorney general's office filed a motion in Family Court to make Akila's case public. It was heard and approved on Feb. 8 by Family Court Judge Marilyn Carlsmith, said Marsha Kitagawa, a spokeswoman for the Judiciary.

But that order was not official until it was filed four weeks later, on March 8.

The attorney general's office could not comment on the lag because it has no knowledge of the Feb. 8 order, Magnier said. The office is only aware of the order's official filing on March 8, she said.

Six more weeks passed before human-services officials approached the media with Akila's story. Service could not explain the delay.

"I don't know the answer to that," she said. "There are some time lags all along the way."