Call for psychiatry profession to be held to account over Lake Alice abuse

Friday, 19 November 2021

Royal Commission Forum spokesman Oliver Sutherland said there needed to be accountability from the psychiatric profession regarding the lack of action over what happened at Lake Alice in the 1970s.

An organisation supporting the survivors of state abuse at Lake Alice Hospital in the 1970s is calling for accountability from the psychiatric profession.

The Royal Commission Forum is a group which monitors the work of the Royal Commission on Abuse in Care which is examining what happened to children, young people and vulnerable adults in state care in New Zealand.

The forum has asked the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) to apologise for its “complicity” in the abuse of children at the Lake Alice Child and Adolescent Unit from 1972-1978.

This year the Royal commission inquiry heard from Lake Alice victims about horrific conditions, mistreatment, abuse and the use of electroconvulsive therapy and seclusion rooms as punishment at the unit.

In 1977, Dr Oliver Sutherland laid complaints with the police regarding reports of electro-shock treatment being used to torture children at Lake Alice in Rangitīkei.

Dr Selwyn Leeks was the lead psychiatrist at Lake Alice's child and adolescent unit from 1972-1978 which is currently under investigation as part of the Royal Commission on Abuse in Care.

* Lake Alice: After two failed police investigations, will a third be any better?

* Why were cruel and experimental treatments on the children of Lake Alice overlooked by the medical profession?

Police then conducted two formal investigations into the activities of the psychiatrist of the unit, Dr Selwyn Leeks, in 1977 and 2010.

On both occasions police concluded Leeks was not guilty of criminal assault.

Over seven podcast episodes, journalist Aaron Smale talks to survivors of Lake Alice - like Vernon Sorenson - as well as former staff, and goes in search of the psychiatrist who oversaw the experimental therapies at Lake Alice, Dr Selwyn Leeks.

However, during the Royal Commission inquiry in June, Detective Superintendent Thomas Fitzgerald apologised on behalf of police to the Lake Alice survivors, saying from 2002-2010 “police did not accord sufficient priority in resources to the investigation of criminal offending at [Lake Alice]”.

Forum spokesperson Sutherland, who now lives in Nelson, said RANZCP had to date been silent on the abuse.

He said there were at least two psychiatrist members of the college, besides Leeks and his staff, who administered electric shocks to children during the 1970s.

At the time, numerous members of the college had also publicly lauded and defended Leeks against the allegations, despite Leeks’ methods being well-known and highly publicised.

“All that had happened, the profession had heard it all – nothing was ever said. We've had the inquiry this year, case after case, horror after horror, still not a word from the professional body.

The now closed Lake Alice Psychiatric hospital, which has been bought by property developer Jim McDonald who will demolish the ruined buildings and turn it into farmland.

“We now think it's time they should front up with an apology for their complicity – complicity in terms of them not doing anything.”

One of these endorsements of Dr Leeks’ methods was provided by psychiatrist Dr David McLachlan, a Fellow of the College, who was asked by police to review the files in their investigation in 1977.

This year Sutherland obtained the investigation files from police in 1977, including McLachlan’s report.

In the report, McLachlan had concluded the allegations against Leeks were unsubstantiated, and no further action be taken.

He said while “unorthodox methods of treatment” were used, “it could not be regarded as improperly motivated or unprofessional”.

Some of these methods included electro-shock treatment without anaesthetic to children as young as nine, applied to all areas of the body including the genitals.

At times this was carried out by non-specialists, and on occasion even by fellow patients.

In what Sutherland called a “sweeping, offensive and highly inaccurate generalisation”, McLachlan had described the patients as being “hopeless and beyond control”.

Sutherland said there was precedent for an apology, with RANZCP having previously done so to the victims of Australia’s “stolen generations”.

He said the College had responded to the Forum’s approach, and indicated a willingness to meet and discuss the matter of the apology.

A spokesman for the RANZCP said it could confirm it had received correspondence from Sutherland and had advised him the organisation awaited the release of the royal commission findings.

“This is a tragic set of events that we have previously made statements about on many occasions,” the spokesman said.

The college had previously urged anyone adversely affected by treatment at Lake Alice to lodge a formal complaint, and had called for an investigation into practices at Lake Alice.