Past patient could not understand why he was sent to Lake Alice psychiatric hospital and Epuni Boys Home when he was a teenager.
He says he was bashed, sexually assaulted and given electro-convulsive therapy as punishment. And now, more than 30 years later, he does not know why people he says were responsible have not been exposed and why he has not received fair compensation for the damage they caused in his life.
"I have such a clear cut case, I don't know why they have struck me out," Mr Banks says of a decision that his claim for $5 million compensation cannot continue. "I can't go out and earn an income - I want someone to pay for that."
Now 51, the Palmerston North man says money is not his only goal. "I want them exposed. They need to be named and shamed; there needs to be a mark against their names."
For four months in 1973, in between spells in Lake Alice, Mr Banks, then 14, was sent to Epuni Boys' Home in Lower Hutt for preventive supervision. The home closed in the 1990s.
He was scared that an ECT machine like the one at Lake Alice would appear so he locked himself in the toilet. A staff member sexually assaulted him and he was beaten up so often he was sent back to Lake Alice.
He was tortured then and he is being tortured again now, he said. He has been diagnosed with post- traumatic stress disorder, as well as anxiety and depressive symptoms.
In 2006, he started a civil case against the Social Welfare Department. More than three years later, a judge has ruled his claim cannot proceed. His allegations were denied generally, but the frontline defence was that his claim was brought too late.
Like many of the more than 900 others who have made claims for historic abuse in various kinds of institutions - mostly psychiatric hospitals, welfare homes, and military training schools - he has run up against the Limitation Act.
It imposes a two-year window within which to launch some types of civil claims. That window can be widened to six years in some circumstances.
The Limitation Act timeframes can be changed in cases where a person was not immediately able to link an event with the mental or physical damage they say resulted, or that they were under a disability, for instance a mental illness, that meant they could not start proceedings earlier.
The emergence of so many historic abuse claims has led to refinements in this part of the law.
But Justice Gendall said that, in Mr Banks' case, the difficult legal questions did not need further consideration because there was no evidence to back up his claim that he could not, and did not, link his psychological damage to events at the boys' home. To avoid the Limitation Act, there needed to be an incapacity and not just "an inability to face up to the process of suing", the judge said.
Justice Gendall said that at age 18, in 1977, Mr Banks had complained to mental health authorities about the Lake Alice events. In 1999, he joined with a group of former patients who won an out-of-court settlement.
But the judge who struck out his Epuni claim said Mr Banks should have asked for permission to bring the case about Epuni at the very latest in April 2005, and probably much earlier.
"It has cut me pretty deep," Mr Banks said. It had taken him a lifetime to get this far and he did not care if it took him till the grave to get justice.
He continues to press for criminal charges against former psychiatrist Selwyn Leeks, who administered ECT at Lake Alice. Mr Banks was instrumental in exposing him in 1999.
Dr Leeks moved to Australia in the late 1970s. In 2006, he escaped a doctors' disciplinary inquiry in Victoria by promising not to practice again.
"I have such a clear cut case, I don't know why they have struck me out," Mr Banks says of a decision that his claim for $5 million compensation cannot continue. "I can't go out and earn an income - I want someone to pay for that."
Now 51, the Palmerston North man says money is not his only goal. "I want them exposed. They need to be named and shamed; there needs to be a mark against their names."
For four months in 1973, in between spells in Lake Alice, Mr Banks, then 14, was sent to Epuni Boys' Home in Lower Hutt for preventive supervision. The home closed in the 1990s.
He was scared that an ECT machine like the one at Lake Alice would appear so he locked himself in the toilet. A staff member sexually assaulted him and he was beaten up so often he was sent back to Lake Alice.
He was tortured then and he is being tortured again now, he said. He has been diagnosed with post- traumatic stress disorder, as well as anxiety and depressive symptoms.
In 2006, he started a civil case against the Social Welfare Department. More than three years later, a judge has ruled his claim cannot proceed. His allegations were denied generally, but the frontline defence was that his claim was brought too late.
Like many of the more than 900 others who have made claims for historic abuse in various kinds of institutions - mostly psychiatric hospitals, welfare homes, and military training schools - he has run up against the Limitation Act.
It imposes a two-year window within which to launch some types of civil claims. That window can be widened to six years in some circumstances.
The Limitation Act timeframes can be changed in cases where a person was not immediately able to link an event with the mental or physical damage they say resulted, or that they were under a disability, for instance a mental illness, that meant they could not start proceedings earlier.
The emergence of so many historic abuse claims has led to refinements in this part of the law.
But Justice Gendall said that, in Mr Banks' case, the difficult legal questions did not need further consideration because there was no evidence to back up his claim that he could not, and did not, link his psychological damage to events at the boys' home. To avoid the Limitation Act, there needed to be an incapacity and not just "an inability to face up to the process of suing", the judge said.
Justice Gendall said that at age 18, in 1977, Mr Banks had complained to mental health authorities about the Lake Alice events. In 1999, he joined with a group of former patients who won an out-of-court settlement.
But the judge who struck out his Epuni claim said Mr Banks should have asked for permission to bring the case about Epuni at the very latest in April 2005, and probably much earlier.
"It has cut me pretty deep," Mr Banks said. It had taken him a lifetime to get this far and he did not care if it took him till the grave to get justice.
He continues to press for criminal charges against former psychiatrist Selwyn Leeks, who administered ECT at Lake Alice. Mr Banks was instrumental in exposing him in 1999.
Dr Leeks moved to Australia in the late 1970s. In 2006, he escaped a doctors' disciplinary inquiry in Victoria by promising not to practice again.
And still NO justice!! $5million was a figure Kevin's then lawyer put as a fair compensation package..Funny, he was the last to know about this..
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