Lake Alice horrors to be aired

A child and adolescent unit at a notorious Manawatu¯ institution is to be the focus of a two-week hearing looking at abuse in staterun psychiatric care.

The Royal Commission’s Abuse In Care Inquiry is investigating what happened at the Lake Alice Child and Adolescent Unit, which operated from 1972 until 1978 near Marton.

Former patients described horrific conditions, mistreatment and abuse during their time in the facility, including the use of electroconvulsive therapy and seclusion rooms as punishment.

Survivors of abuse, their family, staff members, experts and institutional witnesses would speak at the public hearing, which starts today.

Lead investigation counsel Andrew Molloy said the hearing was a snapshot of the entire inquiry, in which about 300 people had been identified as patients.

Molloy said there were no records of patients or those records could not be found, so it was unknown how many people had filtered through the unit.

Lake Alice was a psychiatric hospital for criminally insane adults but the adolescent unit had mostly housed children from 10 to 16 years of age.

It was originally thought that there were about 200 young people and children treated at the hospital but that number had risen as the inquiry continued.

Molloy said part of the task had been to locate and talk to as many people involved in the institution as possible. Several dozen people had come forward and about 19 survivors would speak at the hearing.

‘‘We are trying to give a voice to those who haven’t been able to have one,’’ Molloy said.

The inquiry would touch on what happened to children and young people at the unit, and why this occurred.

It would also investigate what the Government, police and professional bodies did to prevent and respond to the abuse of children and adolescents in the unit.

Molloy said that the former patients would talk about what happened to them under the guise of treatment and their lives since.

Relatives of patients who had since died would talk about their experiences of having their parent or family member admitted into the unit.

STUFF The now demolished Lake Alice Psychiatric hospital. Its child and adolescent unit is the subject of new public hearing. Inset: An abandoned building at the site in 2009.