Patients shocked Lake Alice psychologist still providing services for ACC

• Lake Alice survivors are unhappy a psychologist they knew from the 1970s is still providing services for ACC
• ACC says it takes guidance from professional standards bodies
• The psychologist says he visited Lake Alice only to observe
• Survivors believe he was the child and adolescent unit head's right-hand man

Lake Alice survivors are dismayed a psychologist they knew from the notorious psychiatric facility is still providing services for ACC.

Victor Soeterik is adamant he only visited Lake Alice for half a day a week in the 1970s to observe group therapy sessions at the child and adolescent unit, where the government has acknowledged children were tortured.

But survivors saw him as the right-hand-man of disgraced lead psychiatrist, Dr Selwyn Leeks, and say he ran the sessions that resulted in children receiving electric shocks and painful paralysing injections.

Malcolm Richards, who was sent to the Rangitīkei unit as a teenager in the 1970s, was shocked to find Soeterik on a list of psychologists providing services to ACC.

"He took group therapy every week, and if you didn't speak up he would put you on the list either to get unmodified ECT or paraldehyde."

Unmodified ECT is electric shocks without anaesthetic.

Soeterik is semi-retired, but still sometimes practises in Hawke's Bay. ACC said he was one of its approved service providers, and was able to treat and assess clients with sensitive claims.

Richards believed Soeterik knew what was going on at Lake Alice and he should be banned from carrying out such work.

"It's just madness using an abuser to help people," he said. "Someone who's harmed people will never help people. I'd like to see him struck off, and a proper investigation."

Soeterik was never charged over allegations about his time at Lake Alice, although Checkpoint has learned survivor Karilyn Wildbore has made a fresh complaint with police, who said they were assessing it.

There was no suggestion Soeterik administered electric shocks or paralysing injections.

Richards said group therapy was still a terrifying experience.

"People that weren't even mentally ill were forced to take part in these group therapy sessions. Some of us just had a few behavioural problems and we had to spill our guts about everything that happened in our family."

Soeterik would not be interviewed by Checkpoint, but said he stood by his 2021 evidence to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State Care.

At the hearings he said he would go to Lake Alice for half a day a week, from 1975 to 1977, to observe group therapy. He also made suggestions about improving the unit, such as having a school there, he said.

Survivors' lawyer Frances Joychild, KC, questioned him about his recollection, saying survivors viewed him as Leeks' right-hand man.

"Apparently, yes," Soeterik said.

"Survivor after survivor after survivor, who were in the unit at the time you were, have said - everyone has said - that if you didn't speak up in group therapy you either got paraldehyde or ECT. Did you know that?" Joychild asked.

"No, that I did not know," he said.

Soeterik said he knew ECT was administered, but only in a clinical setting.

"Well I put it to you, Soeterik, that you are grossly underestimating the impact and the influence you had in the Lake Alice child and adolescent unit. What's your statement to that?" Joychild asked.

"Well, looking at the evidence that's been presented, that would seem to point in that direction. I did not set out [to] be grossly influential on anything. I was just there to learn," Soeterik said.

He denied having individual patients.

Checkpoint has seen two letters signed by him that outline in detail a Lake Alice patient's background and clinical history.

Another survivor described him as Watson to Leeks' Sherlock Holmes.

'A constant presence'

Fellow survivor Rosemary Thomson was in the unit for eight days, 48 years ago this week.

"From my experience he seemed to be a constant presence at the unit, certainly more than half a day," she said.

"The three group sessions I was forced to attend alone comprised three half days, and that's putting aside the three meetings I had with Leeks when Soeterik was present."

Now a senior Auckland lawyer, Thomson was disappointed she was not called to give evidence at the royal commission, and would have liked to have seen Soeterik face tougher questions about the group therapy sessions.

"As a new face he would always begin by zeroing in on me and referred to me as a 'spoiled brat', asking me what it was like to be a spoiled brat. I don't recall any other staff being present at the sessions."

She said he would also confront her with the contents of letters she thought she was writing home, and ask others what they thought.

At the royal commission, Soeterik said a statement he made in 2001 - that he was a "co-facilitator" at the sessions - was an error. But survivors Checkpoint spoke to believe his earlier remark is accurate.

Mike Ferriss from watchdog group the Citizens Commission on Human Rights was adamant ACC should cut ties with Soeterik.

"I think it was Roger McClay, the children's commissioner, who said in 2001 that no person working in Lake Alice should have anything to do with children in the future, in any professional role.

"But, I would go further than that. They should have no involvement with anybody, in any kind of clinical role."

ACC said it required service providers to have appropriate skills, experience and qualifications, and it relied on professional bodies to regulate health professionals.

The New Zealand Psychologists Board said it had no open complaints about Soeterik.

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