Steve Watt made a complaint in the late 1990s after being abused at the Lake Alice child and adolescent unit. Photo: RNZ/ Jimmy Ellingham
Warning; This story discusses the abuse of children.
A survivor of the Lake Alice child and adolescent unit, where children were tortured in the 1970s, has received an in-person apology from the Medical Council for not investigating a complaint he made.
But Steve Watt would still like a public apology so everyone can hear what the Medical Council has to say about why his complaint to the council in the late 1990s, about the unit's lead psychiatrist, Dr Selwyn Leeks, went nowhere.
Fifty years after he was taken to the Lake Alice psychiatric hospital unit, and 25 years after his complaint to the Medical Council about Leeks, Steve Watt was not sure what to expect from his face-to-face meeting with the council.
He received painful paralysing injections, among other abuse at Lake Alice, and witnessed Leeks give electric shocks to another boy.
Watt recently received his Medical Council file from the 1999 complaint and was unhappy with its dismissive tone.
It contained a letter saying the council would not take action against Leeks, but this never reached Watt at the time. Three years later he suffered a severe brain injury in a car crash.
In Wellington recently he had the chance to question Medical Council chair Dr Rachelle Love and council member Kim Ngarimu.
"It went really well. I was very impressed," Watt said after the meeting. He found them authentic and accepting of the council's errors.
The council posted an apology for its Lake Alice failures online in July, which Watt saw as hollow and impersonal.
He said the council accepted his point that Leeks did not follow the Hippocratic oath to act ethically.
One of Watt's advocates, Mike Ferriss, told the council if it had upheld complaints from Watt, and another one in the 1970s, subsequent police investigations that did not result in charges could have ended differently. Leeks died in 2022 having never been held accountable for his actions.
The council admitted its handling of Watt's complaint was not good enough, including descriptions on file of him as difficult.
"I know I can't be the easiest chap to deal with sometimes if I'm angry, but if you don't stir me and you treat me with respect I give it back. But, if you antagonise and deny us, you're going to get a short, sharp [shock]," he said.
Love told Checkpoint this week the online apology was made in the hope abuse survivors would then get in contact, which a small number had done, leading to face-to-face meetings.
Work was ongoing to include survivors in Medical Council processes, while the public apology Watt requested, to him and other Lake Alice survivors, remained on the table.
"We are very open to accommodating those requests from Steve. That seems like a reasonable request. Today's interview [with RNZ] is another way of me publicly saying how deeply apologetic I am on behalf of [the] council."
That apology extended to how Watt's concerns were dismissed 25 years ago, something Love said would play out differently now and left the council with a sense of shame.
"It brought some dismay to read the letter from the council back to him. It didn't address his concerns and in today's currency I would say it did not foreground the survivor's voice.
"It actually very much said, 'This is difficult for us and we're not going to pursue.'"
It was hard for Love to read that and understand what was going through the minds of decision makers at the time, she said.
"Speaking with you today is a further way of saying how deeply sorry I am, for Steve specifically with respect to the Medical Council's failure to take forward his notification of complaint.
"Also further back then that, the sentinel events that occurred at Lake Alice in the 60s and 70s - none of that should have happened, and when it did happen it should have been stopped. Dr Leeks should have been stopped."
Watt said he felt at last listened to, but at age 64 he wanted to see further action happen fast - a public apology and some form of redress.
"A lot of us are not well. I've had two heart attacks and been through bowel cancer. You don't know what's round the corner."
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