CAT/C/68/D/852/2017 sensitive historical issue involving the abuse of children in State care. They have also failed to expressly acknowledge and qualify the alleged treatment inflicted on the complainant. 9.5 In its observations, the State party claims that the decision not to prosecute Dr. Leeks was informed by a lack of evidence and a determination that there was no other countervailing public interest in proceeding with a prosecution. However, the State party has not demonstrated that it made sufficient efforts to clarify the facts. The State party admits not only that complaints related to treatment at the Lake Alice hospital in the 1970s began to emerge and have continued since 1976, but also that as recently as 2018 a Royal Commission of Inquiry was established to look into historic abuses in State care, including the events at Lake Alice, and that new related complaints lodged in 2019 are being investigated by the police. In the absence of convincing explanations by the State party, the Committee fails to see why there is no countervailing public interest in proceeding with a prosecution. The case concerns violence in State care inflicted upon a vulnerable group and independent bodies cannot be delegated to decide on criminal matters. In that connection, the Committee notes that the Medical Council also refused to take action by accepting cancellation of Dr. Leeks’ registration as a medical practitioner. The State party endorsed such an act, leading to impunity, despite its obligation to protect those in a vulnerable position against abuse and with no other legal possibility of taking further their allegations to the competent authorities. 9.6 The 2010 police report further mentions that “the charges were only considered in relation to the guilt of the main suspect, Dr. Leeks”, concluding that “there was unlikely to be sufficient evidence to successfully prosecute a charge of wilful cruelty to a child”. The Committee expresses concern that the authorities have not tried to find out if anybody else could be held responsible for the alleged violations, which raises doubts as to the effectiveness of the police investigation, which should be capable of identifying those responsible for the violations. 9.7 The Committee further notes that the police investigation attached significant weight to the fact that the appropriate charge for the police to consider the facts was time-barred by a six-month time limit. However, neither the State party’s observations nor the police have established if the complainant, who was a child when he suffered the abuse, could have effectively complained in the six-month-period after he was released from the Lake Alice hospital, where he had been sent by his own mother. The Committee notes that the complainant stayed there until 1975 and then provided submissions to the 1977 Commission of Inquiry. In that connection, the Committee draws attention to the State party’s obligation under article 12 of the Convention to ensure that its competent authorities proceed ex officio to a prompt and impartial investigation wherever there is reasonable ground to believe that an act of torture has been committed.35 The Committee notes that it was only in 2003 that the Government invited former Lake Alice victims to make a criminal complaint to the police and yet, in spite of this express invitation, the police have still not clarified the facts surrounding the events in question. 9.8 Finally, the Committee notes that, when confronted with several complaints in respect of the events at the Lake Alice hospital, the investigative authorities of the State party chose only a “representative complaint for analysis”. The Committee considers that in the specific circumstances of such undisputed historic complaints, choosing to analyse only one complaint triggers the risk of ignoring the systemic character of the issue at stake and all the surrounding circumstances. 9.9 In the light of the above, the Committee considers that the State party’s failure to conduct an effective investigation into the circumstances surrounding the acts of torture and ill-treatment suffered by the complainant while he was at the Child and Adolescent Unit of the Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital is incompatible with the State party’s obligations under articles 12, 13 and 14 of the Convention to ensure that the competent authorities proceed to a prompt and impartial investigation wherever there is reasonable ground to believe that an act of torture and/or ill-treatment has been committed.36 35 36 See, for example, Kabura v. Burundi (CAT/C/59/D/549/2013), para. 7.4. See Committee against Torture, general comment No. 3, para. 40. 15