Government acknowledges torture at Lake Alice

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.”