Age when entered care: 12 years old
Year of birth: 1960
Hometown: Rahutu, Taranaki
Type of care facility: Psychiatric – Lake Alice Hospital Child and Adolescent Unit in Rangitikei
Whānau background: Paul grew up with his mum and dad, two younger sisters and a little brother on a farm. They moved to Te Papaioea Palmerston North when he was 11 years old.
Currently: Paul has two children from separate relationships and a 5 year old grandchild. He is on his own now. He lost his sibling relationships after Lake Alice. No one believed what it had been like for him. It was better not to be around them. He has always found it very hard to be intimate in a relationship.

One Sunday I started to get headaches and bleeding noses. I spent a week in hospital, and I got a series of tests including a lumber puncture, which hurt a lot and I had to lie on my back for two days. They found nothing wrong with me.

Then they called in Victor Soeterik, a psychologist from a place called Manawaroa. I was sort of shocked when I was going there because I knew that Manawaroa was a place where ‘mentals’ went. I attended a discussion group but I thought it was just a waste of time. Every Thursday after school I had to go to Manawaroa for the group sessions for at least two months. I was 12 years old.

After I stopped going to the group discussions at Manawaroa I was getting into trouble. So, Mum got in contact with Manawaroa and tried to talk to Victor Soeterik, but he wasn’t there. Instead, there was a psychiatrist whose name was Dr Selwyn Leeks and he said that I should try a wee while at Lake Alice Hospital. I was stunned because everybody in Palmerston North knew that Lake Alice was a place for ‘loonies and cracked-up people’ and I never thought I would ever go to a place like that. Dr Leeks had a few interviews with Mum and me, then he sent me to Lake Alice Hospital when I was 13 years old.

Within a week I was given Paraldehyde for making insolent remarks toward the staff and misbehaving. After two weeks there I started to give the wrong impression to the staff by playing up and for that I got ECT (electroconvulsive therapy) and boy I hated that. I recall taking off my shoes and belt and laying down on the bed. I recall a kidney-shaped dish containing headphones which were soaking in liquid. This was on the trolley next to the bed. At this stage, Dr Leeks walked into the room, introduced himself and said he was going to give me “some of this to teach me a lesson” and to let me know what it was like. They applied gel to my temples. A hand towel, which was rolled in a sausage-like shape, was placed in my mouth. The hand towel was to gag me to ensure that I wouldn’t bite my tongue. The experience of unmodified ECT was pure pain. After receiving ECT for the first time, my next recollection was waking up in bed with water running out of my mouth.

At Lake Alice if you do something wrong, didn’t do your schoolwork or not talk in the groups – upstairs for shock treatment and that was the start.

The ECT sessions usually occurred on Friday’s when Dr Leeks would come about 9 or 10am in his white Kombi van and have discussions with the staff, while we were sitting in the day room in a big circle waiting and being scared in case your name was called to go upstairs.

Sometimes two or three of us would get called and were taken to individual, single rooms where we were left on our own, looking at plywood white shutters over the windows with one-inch-thick circles for the fingers, to wait our turn and listen to the screaming of other boys getting ECT knowing we were next.

I would be held down by three of the nursing staff, one on each knee and one holding my shoulders down. I cannot recall exactly how many times I got ECT for what, but I got it at least 12 times for group therapy discussions to try to change my attitude and stubbornness. I got it for mischievous behaviour, not getting on with other people, having an argument with some of the other guys, not eating my meals, not talking in a group. I wouldn’t talk so I’d go upstairs for ECT, then I’d talk and get myself in trouble, then I got more ECT.

I mostly got ECT on the head, but I also got it on my knees and scrotum. I remember that happening three times but there were plenty more times I can’t remember.

During the ECT Dr Leeks would pause and say something smart, like, “We’re going to change your way of thinking” or “You’ve been bad Paul, we’ve got to change your thoughts.” Then he would turn the dial up. When the first round is delivered the pain is unbearable. You could see black zigzags going through your head. Same with the second and third rounds, black zigzags still in your head, excruciating pain. In the third round your teeth were sore from the pressure of biting down and then the fourth round, bliss because you were unconscious.

You’d wake up alone, naked and looking at the plywood shutters over the windows, feel like shit. Then the nurses would say, “Come on Paul, come on down and have tea.”

The staff would feel sorry for you and would try to cheer you up with biscuits and Milo.

I was also given ECT on my testicles for bed wetting. It was particularly painful.

I remember my father coming along once he had found out where I was. He came to see me. I was upstairs getting zapped. He was bawling his eyes out. “I want to see my son.” He was told he would have to come back another day. He could hear me screaming. He wanted to do something but couldn’t.

I was also given Paraldehyde for punishment. A nurse would give the injection by putting their arm around my middle like a waistlock and bending me over to administer the injection to my buttock. I can still recall the smell. We were used as a
target. There would be three or four of us in the little medical room, pants down, facing the wall. One nurse would throw the Paraldehyde syringe like a dart, from about one metre away from us, into our buttocks.

While in Lake Alice I was also administered Imipramine, Stelazine, Benzhexol, Chlorpromazine, Modecate, Artane to name some of the medications.

I was put into seclusion many times. The rooms were about three metres square with a thin mattress and no blankets. I often spent the night in these rooms. They had these special plywood shutters with small holes in them on the windows so as you couldn’t see out. The room was very dark when the lights were turned out.

Overall, I was admitted to Lake Alice five times before I was 16 years old. Then I became an adult and was put into the adult villa under Dr Bill Carr. He was my life saver. After three months I was off my medication. Dr Carr said, “We’re throwing you out, you don’t need to be here, there is nothing wrong with you, you shouldn’t have even been in those other villas.” On 3 November 1976 I was discharged for the final time.

I left for Australia to start again where I spent eight months. I got mixed up with the wrong people, which resulted in conflicts with the criminal justice system there and I was deported back to New Zealand. I flew to Nelson where I stayed with The Salvation Army emergency lodge. They taught me things I didn’t know, such as personal hygiene. They also got me a job unloading fish at Sealords.

I was taking 16 Nurofen tablets per day to address migraines and blinding headaches. I attribute this to the ECT I got while at Lake Alice Hospital. I won’t take drugs anymore and I won’t ever seek psychiatric treatment again. I have learned to live with the pain. I also have explosions in my head, like a hand grenade going off. This can happen daytime or nighttime and happens when I am being asked or trying to remember things about Lake Alice. I suffer panic attacks occasionally. I control the bed wetting by not drinking anything in the evening and no coffee. My body aches all the time and I have cramping in my joints.

With over 40 years of stonewalling and whitewashing, and millions of dollars in defence the New Zealand Government needs to show some heart and tell the truth and do what the UN Committee Against Torture have urged and to uphold the law.

How much blood has to be spilled before real justice can be obtained? Certainly 40 years is too long, and people have died in the process, some directly relating to the abuse they received. Their blood is on the Government’s hands. So, do the right thing and tell the truth.

Source

Witness statement of Paul Zentveld (17 March 2021).