There are renewed calls for the Government to recognise that many more survivors of abuse in state care were tortured beyond the group from Lake Alice psychiatric hospital.
Patients who were at Lake Alice’s Child and Adolescent unit in Rangitikei between 1972 and 1977 were subjected to unmodified electroconvulsive therapy without anaesthetic and paraldehyde injections as punishment.
The group is eligible for at least $150,000 compensation because of the horrific abuse they suffered at the hands of the state – treatment classed as torture by the United Nations.
But human rights lawyer Sonja Cooper told 1News that “even if we just look at the psychiatric hospitals, it is extremely arbitrary what the Government has done”.
“The Government has singled out the smallest cohort of people, pretty much put them on a pedestal to say, ‘Look, we’ve listened to the Royal Commission’ and is dishing them out huge payments, where people who suffered exactly the same treatment, but not in the Child and Adolescent Unit, are ignored.”
‘It still goes through your mind all the time’
Among them is Christchurch survivor Warren Anthony, who suffered sexual abuse at the hospital but not in the Child and Adolescent Unit. He said he was also given electroconvulsive therapy over 100 times and injected with paraldehyde. However, because he left the facility in 1970, his mistreatment is not classed as torture.
“I am a victim of torture and it still goes through your mind all the time. You’re out cold, you wake up and you’re strapped to a bed. I am finding it hard to talk about it, you know, but I don’t know what else to do now,” he told 1News.
His daughter Zoe Coutts-Anthony added: “It angers you to know that a poor little seven-year-old went through this stuff and not just any seven-year-old boy – your own dad.”
Anthony said it “hasn’t been an easy road all the way”, adding that he still struggles to sleep.
“I sleep with one eye open, which is natural considering what’s happened to me, I suppose.”
Anthony spoke for the first time about his horrific abuse – which included being sexually abused at Maryland’s in Christchurch – for the Royal Commission into Abuse in State Care. Because he was in Lake Alice two years prior to the period the Government recognised torture took place, he was offered just $9000 in compensation. He turned it down.
Coutts-Anthony said seeing her father’s hope for recognition of the abuse he suffered as a child “get shot out of the water” was “horrible to watch”.
“It wrecked him for weeks.”
And he’s not alone.
People who suffered the same treatment at Oakley Hospital, for example, can receive just $6000 compensation or $9000 if they were also sexually abused, Cooper said. However, the Lake Alice group are entitled to a minimum of $150,000 in compensation.
“Where is the justice in that?”
Cooper said in 1971 and again in 1983, the government at the time commissioned a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the treatment of patients at Oakley Hospital. The reports were “scathing”, she said, and confirmed that successive governments “have known for decades that unmodified ECT and paraldehyde was administered at Oakley”.
“This is the exact treatment that those who were at Lake Alice are getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for. However, for some reason, despite these inquiries, that same treatment is not recognised as torture if it occurred outside of the Child and Adolescent Unit.”
‘Yet another kick in the guts’
A group of human rights lawyers – including Cooper – are now vowing to hold the Government to account to ensure people are treated equally.
“This is infuriating and is yet another kick in the guts for survivors who are being told that this Government cares more about a small group of survivors than it does about all survivors,” Cooper said.
Human Rights lawyer Lydia Oosterhoff is calling to recognise torture of state care survivors outside Lake Alice. (Source: Breakfast)
“We will do this in any way necessary, whether it is through litigation in the High Court or asking the United Nations to make a wider declaration.”
In a statement, the minister in charge, Erica Stanford, told 1News the Government’s acknowledgement following a Royal Commission of Inquiry into various psychiatric institutions – including Lake Alice’s Child and Adolescent Unit – “defined torture as occurring in the Child and Adolescent Unit which informed the development of eligibility for the torture-redress scheme”.
“It is not appropriate for a government minister to determine whether torture did or did not occur elsewhere. If an individual alleges they were tortured they should notify the Police so the allegations can be investigated. Any allegations of torture relating to Oakley Hospital can also be directed to the Ministry of Health.”
