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Accusations of Abuse in Institutions

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Otago Daily Times
March 12, 2002

Former patients take action over abuse allegations
NZPA

Wellington: As former child patients of one psychiatric hospital yesterday laid criminal complaints against their psychiatrist over their ill-treatment, another hospital was under the spotlight over similar abuse allegations.

Former child patients of Lake Alice Hospital in the Manawatu laid 34 complaints with police against Selwyn Leeks, head psychiatrist in the 1970s at the hospital's child and adolescent unit.

The Government last year apologised to 95 former Lake Alice patients and made a $6.5 million compensation payout after retired High Court judge Sir Rodney Gallen investigated their allegations of ill-treatment and sexual abuse by staff and other patients.

The former patients of Lake Alice filed legal action against the Crown over their treatment at the hospital between 1972 and 1977 which they likened to torture. Dr Leeks' former patients said they were sometimes punished with electric shocks or given injections for non-clinical purposes.

The lawyer who spearheaded the compensation claim, Grant Cameron, told TV's One News last night the criminal complaints were similar to the civil complaints: " . . . mainly that there's been unlawful applications of ECT, unlawful drug injections, a range of sexual abuse, physical assaults and unlawful confinement."

He said last year that Dr Leeks, who no longer practised in New Zealand and lived and worked in Melbourne, could be extradited to face charges.

Meanwhile, former child patients of Porirua Hospital are also preparing to sue the Crown for abuse they claimed they suffered in the late 1960s and 1970s.

Wellington lawyer Sonja Cooper and Nelson-based Jane Hunter act for a small group of former patients.

Ms Cooper said those who had come forward so far, all women, had told remarkably similar stories of being locked in cells, being emotionally, physically and sexually abused, being given ECT - sometimes without anaesthetic, and being injected with paraldehyde as punishment.

Last December, Health Minister Annette King told the former patients the Government would not investigate their allegations because there was no evidence of systematic abuse. - NZPA