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Allegations
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A former Lake Alice
patient is disgusted police have decided not to charge a psychiatrist accused
of abusing young people there in the 1970s. Police say they have
found no evidence of criminal offending after investigating more than 20
complaints from former patients of Selwyn Leeks, who headed the child and
adolescent unit of the now-closed hospital near Wanganui. A man who was a patient
at Lake Alice in the mid-1970s told The Dominion Post the police decision not
to press charges amounted to "full-on denial" of what had happened.
"That is
ridiculous and appalling and insulting. I don't believe they're coming out
with this crap," he said. "It sounds like the Government before
they paid us out in the late 1990s." He plans to lodge another formal
complaint with the police. A police national
headquarters spokeswoman said no "disclosed activity or
intervention" with patients at Lake Alice amounted to criminal
offending. On that basis, there was no authority or requirement to seek Dr
Leeks' extradition from Australia. Dr Leeks, now in his 70s, has worked as a
psychiatrist in Melbourne. Steve Green, spokesman
for psychiatric patient advocacy group Citizens Commission on Human Rights,
said the decision was a "cop out". "Psychiatrists and mental
health workers are not above the law." Mr Green said the group
would continue to file patient complaints with police, and would consider
taking a private prosecution. Police communications
spokesman Jon Neilson said the police investigation into Dr Leeks was over
and it would take "something quite significant" for it to be
reopened. The Government paid
$10.7 million compensation to 183 former Lake Alice patients after retired
judge Sir Rodney Gallen said in a report that they had been subjected to a
regime of "terror". In Australia, the
Medical Practitioners Board of Victoria has interviewed former Lake Alice
patients in preparation for a hearing into misconduct allegations against Dr
Leeks. |
