Rt Hon Christopher Luxon
Prime Minister
Hon Erica Stanford
Lead Coordination Minister for the Government’s Response to the Royal Commission’s Report into Historical Abuse in State Care and in the Care of Faith-based Institutions

For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture.

The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament today.

The Royal Commission found that most of the 362 children who went through the Lake Alice Child and Adolescent Unit between 1972 and 1978 did not have any form of mental illness.

“What the Lake Alice survivors went through was profoundly disturbing. It is reprehensible that this has occurred in New Zealand,” Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says.

“I want to thank the Lake Alice survivors for their determination to ensure what they suffered was brought to light. I am sorry it has taken so long for this acknowledgement of torture.”

The Minister responsible for coordinating the Crown Response to the Abuse in Care Inquiry, Erica Stanford, says throughout the 1970s patients at Lake Alice were given electric shocks without anaesthetic, as well as painful and immobilising paraldehyde injections.

“It is clear treatments were not administered for any medical reason. They were used for punishment and emotional control through terror. It is beyond heartbreaking.”

Ms Stanford says the Government will now consider options for redress for the torture of survivors of Lake Alice.

“Many of the Lake Alice survivors are in fragile health and some have passed away. To their families and whānau, I am sorry that they are not here to hear the State admit to what we should have many years ago.

“That’s why it was so important for the Government to make this announcement today so that we can finally acknowledge what these survivors experienced.”

Note:

• In 2001 the Government apologised to 95 former Lake Alice patients.
• Two rounds of settlements were made to Lake Alice survivors in 2001 and 2002-2003. To date, 202 claims have been settled, averaging $70,000 each, with five more pending. Settlements remain open to Lake Alice survivors who have not yet come forward.
• The Royal Commission produced an interim report on Lake Alice Beautiful Children – Te Uiui o te Manga Tamariki me te Rangatahi ki Lake Alice that the Final Report references.
• Today the Government has, for the first time, acknowledged that some children and young people at the Lake Alice Unit in the 1970s were tortured as defined in the United Nations Convention Against Torture.

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