Victim forced into electric shock ‘therapy’ after reporting sex assault in state care | Australia news | The Guardian

Victim forced into electric shock ‘therapy’ after reporting sex assault in state care

When a child sexual abuse victim reported to staff at the state-run home in charge of his care that he was being assaulted by another boy, he was forced to undergo electric shock “therapy” so severe that it burned his skin, a royal commission heard on Tuesday.

The psychologist who administered the treatment also gave evidence on Tuesday, telling the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse that the shocks felt no stronger than flicking an elastic band against a wrist, and was only given to adults. But later the psychologist described the treatment as “quite severe”, and apologised.

Robert Cummings told the royal commission on Tuesday that he first entered state care at age 15 after being repeatedly beaten by his father and stepmother, and running away from home. 

He was moved through different state-care facilities, but was first abused and raped at Harrison House, a Methodist institution in Hawthorn, Victoria, the commission heard.

Over about seven weeks, the house manager, identified only as BGV, forced Cummings to dress up in women’s clothing before raping him, which was an almost daily occurrence, the commission heard. Cummings said there were no adults, apart from BGV’s wife, to report the abuse to.

He ran away and lived on the streets for two months, the commission heard, before being picked up by police and taken to Turana Youth training centre in Victoria, a home for children and juvenile offenders who had been made wards of the state. There, he was frequently punched and beaten by staff and other boys, he said.

“I was placed in a cell with an older boy, whose name I don’t recall,” Cummings said. 

“Within the first week, he sexually abused me while we were locked in the cell at night. I refused to perform oral sex on the boy, so he punched me until I agreed to do it.”

Cummings said that when he reported the incident to a senior officer at the home, the officer told him that the sexual abuse was “only happening because of your homosexuality”. 

Despite denying he was a homosexual and insisting that he had been sexually abused in his cell, and previously raped while at Harrison House, the officer told Cummings: “This is your fault, you need to be cured,” the commission heard.

Shortly after reporting the abuse, Cummings said two staff members “frogmarched me to Royal Park hospital”. 

“I was scared and didn’t know what was happening,” Cummings, now 60, told the commission. 

“When I arrived at the hospital, I recall the doctor saying words to me to the effect of ‘You’re here because you’re homosexual and we’re going to cure that with electric shock treatment’.” Cummings was 16 years old at the time, the commission heard.

Despite at no stage consenting to the treatment, Cummings said a letter obtained from the hospital written by Dr Douglas Hibbs to Dr Graham Mellsop stated that Cummings had requested the treatment because he did not want to stay a homosexual. 

Cummings said documents that he consented to the treatment, and that he was a homosexual, were false.

The treatment involved strapping electrodes to his ankles and showing him images of half-naked women and fully naked men, the commission heard. Cummings said every time a naked man was shown to him, he would also be given an electric shock.

“At times, I wasn’t ready for the electric shock, so when a picture of a naked man appeared and I wasn’t prepared, I was thrown off the chair,” Cummings said. 

“This session lasted about half an hour to 45 minutes and I remember being terrified and in pain the whole time. During the next two sessions, I spoke to the doctor because I was scared and didn’t want to receive the electric shocks anymore.

“I recall that I met with Hibbs again, where I told him that I didn’t want to receive electric shocks because I was scared and because I felt I was being punished.”

Instead, the strength of the shocks was increased, Cummings said, leaving his skin burned. 

“There were times when the burn marks on my ankles were weeping,” he said.

“Therefore, they had to use the other ankle.”

Cummings said word got back to other boys at Turana that he was being treated for homosexuality, prompting them to call him names and to gang-rape him. He attempted suicide in Turana twice, the commission heard.

The royal commission is investigating three Victorian state-run youth centres in its latest hearings.

Counsel assisting the commission, Penny Dwyer, said “significant efforts” had been made to contact Mellsop and Hibbs and to obtain their answers to questions from the commission. Both now reside in New Zealand, she said.

“It appears then that they have not made themeslves amenable to this jurisdiction,” Dwyer said. 

Thomas Verberne, the psychologist who administered the treatment to Cummings, appeared before the commission on Tuesday afternoon. Verberne said the treatment was known as aversion therapy, and that he had been the first to introduce it to Victoria after reading about its use in the US in a medical journal. 

He predominantly administered it to homosexuals who had been referred to him or who came to him of their own free will, Verberne told the commission, because at the time, homosexuality was still perceived by the medical profession as a disorder.

But it was only given to adults, Verberne said, adding that if anyone protested to the therapy he would have stopped it immediately. He did not recall treating Cummings, though he acknowledged documents presented to him by the commission which stated Cummings was referred to him.

One of the hospital documents presented to the commission by Dwyer wrongly referred to Cummings as being 18 years old at the time of treatment.

Verberne described this error as a “slip of the pen” by the referring doctor. He said he would have remembered if any patient was a child, or if they had been shocked so severely that they had fallen out of their chair or been burned, and that it was not possible to increase the strength of the shocks, which came from a battery.

“Look, may I explain the discomfort or pain ... the shock was quite comparable [to] if you have a rubber band around your wrist and you flick it,” he said.

“If anybody had of said, ‘Oh no, I can’t stand it,’ that would be the end of the session and the end of the treatment.”

But later in the cross-examination, Verberne described the treatment as “quite severe”.

No other staff were present in the room while he administered the electric shocks, Verberne said. He said he could not recall exactly why he discontinued the therapy as a form of treatment. 

“I can’t remember any discomfort or misgivings with the treatment, but after a relatively short time I gave it up,” Verberne said. “Why? That’s a question I have for myself but presumably it has something to do with not being very comfortable about it after all.”

It may have also have been stopped because the “trickle” of patients referred for the therapy dried up, he said.

Though he could not recall treating Cummings, Verbone apologised to him at the end of his cross-examination. 

“Robert, I’m very sorry about all the consequences of having been involved in the therapy that I gave you,” Verberne said to Cummings.

“Having heard Robert’s testimony, I feel very sorry he had reactions to it later on in life.” 

Had he foreseen these affects, Verberne said he would have never administered the treatment.

The treatment had severely affected Cummings’ interpersonal relationships, the commission heard.

“I found that in my early 20s, I was an angry and violent young man,” Cummings told the commission. 

“I developed a hatred for homosexuals and was picked up by police for assault and battery a few times, however, I was never charged. I deeply regret acting out at that time. I felt that the hatred I developed for homosexuals at the time was caused by the electro-shock sessions and the abuse I had suffered up to that point in my life.

“I am currently married, but I have poor intimacy abilities.

“Most times, I don’t enjoy having sex.”

Cummings said when he requested copies of his ward files from the Department of Human Services under the Freedom of Information Act, the documents had a lot of blanked-out information.

“I was told that this was to protect the identity of others,” Cummings said. “There was no further explanation provided.”

Cummings, who dedicated his life to social work following his abuse, called for better reporting mechanisms for children in care to ensure they felt protected and safe when reporting abuse, and said penalties should be increased for perpetrators. 

The statute of limitations on victims should also be removed, he said.

The hearings continue.