What can you say to a room full of people in their 60s who were tortured and abused by the state as children when you represent the profession of the man who inflicted that trauma and they’ve been waiting for someone to be held accountable for their whole lives?
Not much really. But that was the task that faced Dr Elizabeth Moore, president of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, when she tried to read out an apology for what happened to the victims of the Lake Alice adolescent unit.
At various points she was interrupted by those victims who grew increasingly hostile to what they perceived as an apology that was too little too late. “You stole our childhoods. I had a death wish after Lake Alice. I didn’t give a fuck,” said Steve Watt. He also made a rather unflattering comparison between lip service and bad fellatio.
“We’re still children in adult bodies trying to survive this shit,” another said.
They’re also trapped in the recurrent nightmare of no one ever taking responsibility or holding anyone accountable not just for the abuse but the cover-up.
Things didn’t get off to a good start when the sound system was a disaster both in the room and for those watching and listening on a livestream. Which made it even more difficult for victims to hear Dr Moore’s soft voice. Those who preceded Dr Moore didn’t read the room and ratcheted up people’s scepticism and latent distrust before it even got to the main event.
The repeated failures by multiple institutions over decades to hold the main perpetrator, Dr Selwyn Leeks, responsible created a pent-up anger that ended up landing on Dr Moore. She was probably a similar age to many of the victims and had little or nothing to do with those previous failures. But she was now the figurehead facing the victims of those failures. And those failures are legion.
However, the apology by the College needs some context to understand what the potential implications might be.
The College represents a profession that closed ranks around Leeks during the 1970s when the abuse was first exposed by the likes of Oliver Sutherland and others who were exposing abuse in a number of institutions.
That abuse included the use of electric shocks on various parts of the body including the head and genitals as punishment of children. These children had no diagnosed mental illness and were technically being unlawfully detained. They were also being subjected to solitary confinement, sexual abuse and rape by adult patients and staff. Psychiatry, and doctors in general, held unquestioned authority and immense power. Here was an horrific abuse of that power that also posed a number of troubling questions about their authority and expertise. So, the profession protected Leeks in order to protect its own reputation, rather than protect the victims who he was torturing.
The children themselves were telling anyone who would listen – and most of the adults responsible did not listen – about what was happening to them. They told police. They told social workers. They told psychologists. They told politicians. Most did nothing. A few people with integrity did speak out, but they were shut down.
That immediate period was where the first phase of the cover-up of the awful abuse occurred.
But those victimised children grew up and continued to find the courage to confront the institutions that had failed them. Civil litigation that started in the early 1990s and ran into the 2000s tried to haul various institutions before the courts, including the Crown.
While the reaction in the 1970s was egregious, it was a reflexive action of people trying to protect their reputations. What happened in the 1990s and 2000s was far more sophisticated and coordinated.
“You stole our childhoods. I had a death wish after Lake Alice.”
Steve watt, Lake Alice Survivor
The detail and history of this is mind-numbingly convoluted because so many were involved (to get a glimpse of the horror, the Royal Commission’s report is a good place to start. The Lake podcast series gives another insight).
But take the Royal College as an example. It was during the 2000s that this institution, or at least an individual in its leadership, stood up and attempted to do the right thing but ended up running up against the resistance of other institutions.
The college’s executive director at the time, Craig Patterson, made repeated efforts to obtain information and documents and leaned on other institutions to conduct an investigation to make factual findings about Lake Alice. He also publicly condemned the actions of Dr Leeks on a TV documentary describing them as ‘torture’ and ‘terror’, and said “electric shocks for the purposes of getting children to modify behaviour is not medicine. It is not psychiatry … it is assault, it is grievous bodily harm”.
According to the Royal Commission’s report on Lake Alice, Patterson wrote to the Medical Council here urging it to investigate Dr Leeks’ clinical practice, so the College could then act if the allegations were proven. The College demanded statutory bodies with the necessary powers in both countries look “aggressively and unequivocally” into Leeks’ alleged practices, which could “only be described as severe child abuse and torture”. These demands fell down because those running these institutions appeared to regard their reputations as of more value than the children whose lives were wrecked by the trauma they suffered at the hands of Leeks.
But these demands went higher than just professional bodies. They went to the top of political and legal decision-making in government. On October 16, 2001, Patterson wrote to the Minister of Health, Annette King, asking the Government and Ministry of Health to provide any information relating to Dr Leeks’ clinical practice at Lake Alice.
An internal Ministry of Health email said the College had specifically requested evidence filed by survivor Leoni McInroe, who was the first to file a civil case relating to Lake Alice and would end up fighting for nine years. Her file included a highly critical opinion by Dr John Werry, child psychiatrist, who had examined the nursing notes from McInroe’s file and found that what she (and therefore other children) had suffered was in no way medical treatment. It was medical misadventure.
But instead of handing over this and other material to the Royal College, the Crown’s top lawyers withheld this evidence. On October 17, 2001, the Solicitor General of the time Terrence Arnold (who would go on to the Supreme Court and be awarded a knighthood) met Crown lawyer Grant Liddell and another Crown Law lawyer, and discussed how to respond to the college’s requests for information. A note from the meeting said the “Crown should probably only provide information in so far as it is required to by the law”.
The problem with this response was that the issues raised about Leeks’ behaviour weren’t just a civil matter. His actions were criminal and eventually the matter made it to the police in the form of criminal complaints by the victims.
It should be stressed here that Crown Law is the institution that holds the ultimate authority to prosecute crimes. Crown Law knew better than anyone that what had happened at Lake Alice was criminal. How did they know? They held all the relevant evidence in terms of the government and patient files. And there was a mountain of evidence, not to mention hundreds of witnesses and victims.
Yet instead of providing that evidence to the police, Crown Law sat on it. That’s being generous. The police dithered and dallied. Apart from just being lazy and unprofessional – they didn’t bother even to speak to victims of sexual abuse and rape of whom there dozens – they found it convenient to take an agnostic posture. If the doctors even suggested that this was legitimate medical treatment then they weren’t going to bother looking further.
So, after a good eight years the police concluded there wasn’t enough evidence – even though they hadn’t bothered to carry out a professional investigation and Crown Law had withheld crucial evidence.
This decision didn’t stand, however. Thanks to a case taken to the UN on behalf of victim Paul Zentveld, the Crown was found to be in breach of the Convention Against Torture because it hadn’t thoroughly investigated the crimes of Lake Alice.
That decision landed in 2020 and the police had to reopen the file and start again. It didn’t take the new investigation long to find the evidence that had always been there. This was partly because all this evidence was starting to spill out in the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. Crown Law had nowhere to hide and its usual assumption of legal privilege was shattered and secrets were laid bare. The police had to apologise to victims at the Lake Alice hearing. Solicitor General Una Jagose had to admit that, yes, what happened at Lake Alice met the definition of torture. And Crown Law had always known.
You’d think that with all this going on that Crown Law would have felt chastised and in the mood to be scrupulous in doing the right thing. You’d think wrong.
When the police opened what would be the fourth criminal investigation into Lake Alice in 2020 they formally requested a long list of documents from Crown Law. But again, Crown Law did not provide Leoni McInroe’s files. They gave police the runaround and then billed them over $100,000 for providing documents that should have been provided 20 years earlier. McInroe has since complained to the Law Society about Jagose and in her response Jagose acknowledged that Crown Law found the documents within a month of request; Crown Law recognised the files were within scope but didn’t provide them to police and can’t explain why.
McInroe has joked darkly that she is the Crown’s dirty little secret.
This little historical excursion has a direct bearing on the Royal College’s apology and the implications for the Crown and a number of individuals that directed and carried out orders on its behalf. Last year a group of Lake Alice victims made a criminal complaint to police alleging a significant number of high profile political, legal and public service figures should be investigated for obstruction of justice. The Royal College’s apology and previous actions actually bolster these allegations.
The opening sentence of the apology said: “To all those impacted by the horrific abuses conducted at the Lake Alice Child and Adolescent Unit, specifically the torturous actions carried out and directed by psychiatrist Selwyn Leeks: we are sorry.”
Further into the apology Dr Moore said:
“The barbaric abuse conducted by Leeks at Lake Alice was not psychiatry of any form. It is not and never will be condoned. That this harm occurred at all, under the guise of treatment, is a travesty.”
In the midst of the barrage of questions she faced, she acknowledged the College accepted what Leeks did was torture.
So you have a crime – torture. While the law doesn’t allow for the Crimes of Torture Act 1989 to be applied retrospectively, the Crown is still required under the UN Convention to investigate it properly no matter when it happened. And there are other statutes that could have been applied.
Then you have the attempts by Craig Patterson in the 2000s to get information from Crown Law and for various bodies to make findings of fact. This never happened and this failure was the basis of the UN’s decision that New Zealand was in breach of the Convention Against Torture. The Royal Commission’s investigation has exposed the details and specifics of why this didn’t happen. It wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t an oversight. It didn’t slip through the cracks. People in power knew what they should have done but they didn’t do it.
The Royal College’s apology sits alongside the evidence that the College was blocked by the Crown from carrying out an earlier investigation that could have led to Leeks being criminally charged.
Dr Moore was obviously flustered by the rage that Lake Alice victims expressed. But she should not have been surprised – they have waited their whole lives for someone to front-up and take responsibility. She also seemed at a loss to know how to respond in a way that would be meaningful to those victims. But perhaps the most obvious option is right in front of her. She has acknowledged it was torture, i.e, criminal. She knows, and there is documentary evidence, that Crown Law withheld crucial evidence from the College when Craig Patterson was at the helm (Patterson has since passed away). Had that evidence been provided to Patterson at the time, it’s likely he would have put pressure on the police and others to prosecute Leeks. In other words, justice might have been served long ago. It wasn’t and that was because certain people in other institutions made certain choices to protect Leeks in order to shield themselves and the entities they represent from legal liability. But while Leeks is dead, many of those people are still around. If they were so determined to use their powers to shield Leeks, why shouldn’t that criminal liability land on them?
If the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists wants to make substantive amends, there’s one option it might like to consider as a start. The College is in a strong position to throw its support behind the criminal complaint of obstruction of justice made by victims of Lake Alice. It would honour the victims’ long fight for justice and also honour the actions and words of one of their own past leaders, Craig Patterson. It would make the College’s apology tangible and real.
So few people have stood by victims as they’ve carried the burden of the trauma that was inflicted on them as children and that they will carry to their grave in different ways.
So many institutions have failed to stand up for them or even just do their legally required jobs. The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists has finally disowned Leeks and disavowed his actions. Better late than never. But they could take a further step and join victims in pursuing justice against those who stood in the way of holding Leeks accountable.
It could set off a chain reaction that goes all the way to the top.
—-
The Full Apology
The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists Apology to the Survivors of Lake Alice
20 February 2024
Wharerata, Main Drive Massey University, Palmerston North
To all those impacted by the horrific abuses conducted at the Lake Alice Child and Adolescent Unit, specifically the torturous actions carried out and directed by psychiatrist Selwyn Leeks: we are sorry.
To survivors, to their whānau, and to those who are descendants of those who suffered and who did not survive, the RANZCP offers a full and sincere apology.
You were failed.
We know the courageous attempts to raise concerns by young, vulnerable people detained at Lake Alice were ignored. We know that the Ngā Wairiki and Ngāti Apa peoples suffered and that their uri continue to feel the impact.
We know many agencies repeatedly failed you. We know our part in this and acknowledge the actions and inactions of previous members that allowed Leeks to escape proper investigation and punishment.
Your trust was broken.
We are committed to people receiving the best mental health care, guided by evidence and expertise.
The barbaric abuse conducted by Leeks at Lake Alice was not psychiatry of any form. It is not and never will be condoned. That this harm occurred at all, under the guise of treatment, is a travesty.
We know there was denial. That included denying that the abuse was taking place and that contributed to the subsequent chain of decisions.
Since the 1990s, RANZCP has been vocal in calling for the investigation of the many allegations of Leeks’ abuse. In the absence of any finding or action against Leeks, the RANZCP was unable to act. The delivery of the Beautiful Children report in December 2022 formally condemned Leeks’ egregious actions for the first time.
The RANZCP rescinded Leeks’ fellowship immediately.
We acknowledge that for many, these steps came too late. For our organisation’s part in this failure to bring Leeks to justice at the earliest opportunity, we again offer our unconditional apology.
There must never be a repeat of Lake Alice.
The shroud of secrecy around Leeks and his abuses was aided by working in isolation. Now, psychiatrists work transparently and collaboratively, in teams, with supervision, and ongoing training and development.
Our peers, teams and communities hold us to account in our practice. There are robust, safe channels for external reporting.
Complaints are not lost or ignored. We embrace our partnership with community members with lived experience and have a strategy to embed lived-experience knowledge and expertise across our College.
Together we will continue to evolve to deliver care in the best possible way. This apology, as with the apologies given over many years, does not change what has gone before. It is given to convey our acknowledgement of mistakes made, and the impact of these for so many, over such a prolonged period.
We are committed to listening to the recommendations of the Royal Commission with you when they are released, so that our next steps are meaningful and appropriate, and importantly, designed together.
Once again, we are sorry.
Thank you, Aaron, much appreciation for your work.