Hecke algebras for the complex reflection groups G( r, p, n) (where p⩾1 and p∣ r) were introduced in the work of Ariki [J. Algebra 177 (1995) 164–185], Broué and Malle [Astérisque 212 (1993) 119–189]. In this paper we consider modular representation theory for these algebras in the case where r= p. We assume that the field K contains a primitive pth root of unity ε. Our method is to study the restrictions of Specht modules S λ for Hecke algebras H p,n of type G( p,1, n) with parameters ( q;1, ε,…, ε p−1 ). Suppose that f( q, ε)≠0 in K (see 4.7 for definition of f( q, ε)). For any multipartition λ=( λ (1),…, λ ( p) ) of n, we prove that S λ↓ H p,p,n ≅ S λ[k]↓ H p,p,n for any 1⩽ k⩽ p−1, where λ[ k]=( λ ( k+1) , λ ( k+2) ,…, λ ( p) , λ (1), λ (2),…, λ ( k) ); and if k is the smallest positive integer such that λ= λ[ k] (hence k∣ p), we explicitly decompose S λ↓ H p,p,n into a direct sum of p/ k smaller H p,p,n -submodules with the same dimensions. As a result, when f( q, ε)≠0 in K, we show that H p,p,n is split over K and get a complete classification of all the absolutely irreducible H p,p,n -modules. This generalizes earlier work of [C. Pallikaros, J. Algebra 169 (1994) 20–48] and [J. Hu, Manuscripta Math. 108 (2002) 409–430] on Hecke algebras of type D n (which are included as a special case of our main results).