More than half a century after being incarcerated, tortured and sexually abused as children at New Zealand’s Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital, survivors are still seeking justice.
In the 1970s and 80s, Lake Alice was a notorious psychiatric hellhole where an estimated 400 to 450 children were routinely subjected to a reign of terror that included drugging, punishment with electric shock, and physical and sexual assault.
For more than 50 years, survivors have demanded justice. In February 2024, the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) finally apologized publicly to those who had been abused.
The abuses at Lake Alice might have continued without restraint, never exposed to public view, had it not been for more than 45 years of investigations by the Church of Scientology psychiatric reform group Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR).
“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,” said a RANZCP representative. “Your trust was broken.”
RANZCP’s apology was historically significant as it was the first time psychiatrists had acknowledged the severe trauma members of its ranks had inflicted on the children of Lake Alice. One media observer described it as “marking a pivotal step in addressing the harrowing legacy of abuse” that had transpired there in the 1970s.
To many of those who suffered the ordeal, RANZCP’s statement amounted to empty words. Karilyn Wildbore was 12 when she was sent to Lake Alice and today still carries the trauma of her experience there.
“You ever heard the comment waste of breath?” she asked News Hub Australia, describing her reaction to the apology. Another survivor more bluntly called it “a load of crap.”
The abuses at Lake Alice might have continued without restraint, never exposed to public view, had it not been for more than 45 years of investigations by the Church of Scientology mental health watchdog organization, Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR).
“That the system failed you is without question,” Mike Ferriss, Director of the CCHR New Zealand Chapter, told the survivors. “That mental health professionals, staff and agencies failed and even harmed you is beyond doubt. That may prove some solace, but…not yet justice.”
In 1977, CCHR was the first to expose the psychiatric atrocities that occurred at Lake Alice, a story that was subsequently covered in Freedom magazine. For the next four decades, CCHR relentlessly initiated actions and inquiries into the abuses, undeterred by official stonewalling.
Chief among the demands was to bring primary Lake Alice psychiatrist and torturer Selwyn Leeks to justice. Though Leeks was responsible for much of the abuse, he was never prosecuted. Due to the controversy, he ceased practicing psychiatry but remained unindicted until his death in 2022.
When efforts to expose the abuses at Lake Alice continued to fall short of gaining justice for the victims, CCHR took the matter to the United Nations in 2019, forcing the government to act. The resulting Royal Commission of Inquiry held in 2021 was a major breakthrough.
“That the system failed you is without question,” Mike Ferriss, Director of the CCHR New Zealand Chapter, told the survivors. “That mental health professionals, staff and agencies failed and even harmed you is beyond doubt. That may prove some solace, but…not yet justice.”
RANZCP’s apology notwithstanding, today those hundreds of victims, savaged as innocent children by psychiatrists at Lake Alice, are still awaiting that justice.
“Psychiatry on its face is a dangerous and deadly practice, as those who survived Lake Alice attested,” said Ferriss.
“There is no such thing as reforming psychiatry,” he continued. “The only acceptable solution is to abolish it completely.”
