CAT/C/68/D/852/2017 Complainant’s comments on the State party’s observations on admissibility and the merits 5.1 The complainant submitted his comments on 23 December 2018. He contends that instead of fully investigating the claims of punishment, ill-treatment and sexual abuse at the Lake Alice hospital, the State party conducted very limited inquiries and investigations that avoided seeking any accountability for what had occurred. The four inquiries and investigations that took place in 1977 looked at isolated complaints and exonerated the psychiatrist in charge of the Child and Adolescent Unit, along with the other medical staff and authorities involved. 5.2 In the early 2000s, when almost 100 claimants were alleging ill-treatment, physical abuse, punishment and sexual abuse, instead of an open court action there was a negotiated settlement, ex gratia compensation and an apology to almost 200 former child patients of Lake Alice. What the State party did not bank on was that the former High Court judge assessing the claims would write his own non-commissioned report on what he found when investigating the Lake Alice cases27 and that this would be reported in the New Zealand media, thus further exposing the level of cruel ill-treatment of children in State care.28 5.3 The complainant then refers to the various Lake Alice inquiries and investigations. The State party claims that the 1977 Commission of Inquiry and the report issued by the Chief Ombudsman, responding to isolated complaints of abuse at Lake Alice, were significant in that they were contemporaneous to the alleged abuses. However, in his 2001 report, Sir Rodney Gallen explains why those inquiries were not adequate in the way the children’s complaints were discounted. He found the accounts of the claimants to be consistent and supported by the medical notes. It was his report that the Government considered was evidence that ill-treatment had occurred at Lake Alice. For the first time, the State party had in their possession comprehensive information from over 90 former child patients/residents of Lake Alice, detailing what had happened to them in the 1970s. The statements and records had never been collectively examined during former inquiries and investigations and thus Sir Rodney Gallen was able to determine that unmodified electroconvulsive therapy was routinely used on the children as a punishment. 5.4 Because the medical authorities in New Zealand and Australia refused to pursue any case against Dr. Leeks after he resigned as a practitioner, he was never answerable to them or to any medical practitioner’s code of conduct. That left the police and the complaints that were filed with them in 2002 and afterwards as the only possible recourse for accountability for what occurred. However, even if the police had access to the most comprehensive evidence as to what occurred at Lake Alice, they essentially took the same path as the 1977 investigations, looked at just one case and claimed there was no criminal liability. 5.5 As to the six-month time limit for commencing proceedings under the Mental Health Act 1969, the complainant alleges that section 124 of that Act would have been applicable to the Lake Alice claimants, who first learned that they were able to pursue criminal complaints some time after they received a formal government apology and a financial payout in 2001 and 2002. 5.6 As to the police statement that under the Crimes Act 1961, wilful cruelty to children might be a difficult charge to pursue, the complainant considers that there were many corroborating statements by former patients and reports and statements of persons whose advice was sought by the police. With the wealth of information before them, it is surprising that they could not mount a criminal complaint against the psychiatrist and 27 28 While the report was not an investigation with the formal rules of an inquiry, it was the first time someone in authority had published their findings having looked at more than 90 of the Lake Alice cases, their written statements and supporting medical records and had personally interviewed 41 of them. Up until that time, only isolated cases had been looked at during previous inquiries and investigations. When the Evening Post newspaper went to publish the Gallen report, the Crown attempted to prevent it, claiming it was confidential. The application of the Crown was denied in the High Court. The report made nationwide news and revealed to the public of New Zealand the scale of the abuse to which the children at Lake Alice had been subjected. 9