Tortured boy turned to crime as he sought revenge for his ordeal

Tuesday, 15 June 2021

Rangi Wickliffe was taken to Lake Alice in 1972 and 1973. While there he was raped and given electric shocks.

As a 10-year-old boy, electricity was blasted through his brains and he was raped, while supposedly in the care of the state.

As an adult he’s been in and out of prison, vengeful and consumed with hatred over what happened when he was young.

“My name is Rangi Wickliffe. I have been raped. I have been sodomised. The little boy inside me has spoken,” he told the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care in Auckland on Tuesday.

Wickliffe was taken to Lake Alice, a psychiatric institution near Marton in Rangitīkei, almost 50 years ago. While there, in 1972 and 1973, he was sexually abused and subjected to electro-convulsive therapy.

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The inquiry is investigating the Lake Alice child and adolescent unit, which operated from 1972 until 1978. Wickliffe said he knew giving evidence would re-traumatise him, and he was terrified.

The 59-year-old was in foster care from age 6 and spent 10 years as an adolescent under the state’s watch. As an adult he’s spent 36 years in jail.

“People have said many bad things about me as an offender… no empathy, no remorse, no guilt.

“I say to the Royal Commission, blasting a child’s brain with voltage high enough to just about break your bones and expecting that child to have a normal life afterwards – it’s not going to happen. I will suffer for the rest of my life.”

Wickliffe talked about the effects of what happened at Lake Alice turning into “spiralling behaviour” that led to institutionalisation and incarceration. He developed a mindset of seeking revenge for what happened to him, of hatred and fury.

He was locked up for his first few days at Lake Alice, before he was moved to a villa. On his first night there he was raped.

After complaining to staff he was given electro-convulsive therapy.

“The pain that you feel from the electricity surging through your head is indescribable. The scream that comes out of your mouth is also indescribable,” Wickliffe told the inquiry.

“The terror was so intense that you lost all bowel movement. You would think that would be embarrassing enough, but because of the pain of shock treatment – it’s a burning searing pain going through your head – your body convulses in such a way that it feels like your bones are going to break.”

Psychiatrist Dr Selwyn Leeks administered the shocks. One time he moved the electrodes around Wickliffe’s head and upper body, telling the boy at one point: “Yes, I think that’s the spot. I think I can make you scream louder.”

Wickliffe said there was little supervision for the children left to fend for themselves among adult patients.

He was told his mother and father didn’t want nor love him and, as a ward of the state, Lake Alice staff could do what they wanted.

“Hearing that from an adult destroyed my relationship with my family. I thought they had abandoned me. I thought they knew that was happening to me. I thought that everything that had happened to me was because of what I had done.”

Wickliffe escaped from Lake Alice, but was taken back, terrified about what was to come.

The electric shocks continued as punishment for alleged transgressions such as not eating vegetables. This and the sexual abuse amounted to torture, he said.

Wickliffe said he now locked himself away from people, as certain noises, sounds and smells triggered him. Hospitals reminded him of the liquid used during electro-convulsive therapy.

“I can’t stay in the hospital. I run. I get out of there as fast as possible knowing that the terror is coming… terrified of a smell, terrified of a sound. This is torture.”