Lake Alice survivor forced to live in public car park after benefit wrongly cancelled

Lake Alice torture survivor wrongly denied accommodation supplement due to boat bought with compensation money

Decision left Paul Zentveld unable to pay rent, so he had to park his house bus in public car park

He's since won an appeal to overturn the decision but there are worries others could be affected

A survivor of torture at the notorious Lake Alice child and adolescent unit was forced to live in his house bus in a public car park after his accommodation supplement was wrongly cancelled.

This meant Paul Zentveld, who has a King's Service Medal for services to survivors of abuse in care, couldn't pay his rent.

There are concerns other Lake Alice survivors could be in the same situation.

Torture compensation rules not followed

Zentveld is one of more than 100 Lake Alice survivors who have opted for a $150,000 compensation payment for torture suffered during the 1970s at the unit, under the watch of Dr Selwyn Leeks.

Others have negotiated settlements through arbitration.

These payments are part of a government compensation package that followed an apology from Prime Minister Christopher Luxon in late 2024 for abuse in state and faith-based care.

But last October, Zentveld ran into problems with the Ministry of Social Development (MSD), when his accommodation supplement was wrongly cut.

"In October when I got my pension they cancelled it and said, 'You're not entitled to it'," Zentveld said.

MSD staff determined that a boat he bought with his compensation money ruled him ineligible for support.

"I had an asset, a boat in Auckland. I couldn't get any help coming back to, or any support off MSD, to come back from Christchurch either."

Mistreatment continues - abuse survivor

Last year, Zentveld moved to Christchurch to be closer to family, but when his accommodation supplement stopped he couldn't pay his rent, so had to park his house bus in a public car park.

He's since returned to Auckland and successfully appealed to MSD's benefits review committee against the decision denying him the supplement.

Lake Alice compensation money shouldn't count when MSD assesses a person's eligibility for a benefit, nor should assets bought from it, such as Zentveld's boat.

He said MSD's decision felt as if mistreatment of survivors of abuse was continuing.

"This clawing back - what MSD are doing and all these things against the survivors for redress - this is not saying sorry. This is not making things right. It continues year after year."

Zentveld would receive back payments for the money he'd missed, although he now faced another wait, as his current landlord was overseas and MSD required an invoice from him.

Zentveld said the landlord was OK with him getting in arrears and catching up later, if needed.

Call to review other decisions

MSD's group general manager for client service delivery Graham Allpress said officials received the review committee's decision on 29 June and were "working through next steps".

"We will update the client once this decision has been implemented."

RNZ asked if in light of the decision, MSD would check other decisions affecting Lake Alice survivors who had received compensation.

"All decisions of the benefits review committee, including this one, only apply to a client's individual case," Allpress said.

"This decision will be considered as part of ongoing work around Lake Alice redress payments and the welfare system."

He said if a person didn't agree with a decision about a benefit, MSD would let them know about their rights to appeal.

"Our staff do their best to support clients and make the appropriate decisions based on information they have available at the time."

Zentveld said MSD's response wasn't good enough.

"MSD top brass should review all the Lake Alice survivors and refund them, because it's not right...

"I've got them. I've busted them wide open at their own game."

'A piece of dirt on the bottom of their shoe'

Former chief human rights commissioner David Rutherford agreed decisions affecting other survivors should be checked.

Rutherford has supported Zentveld's fight for recognition for abuse survivors for years, including to the United Nations Committee against Torture.

"It is concerning that it took a survivor of the torture at Lake Alice to win an appeal, essentially. And some of the background information shared is also concerning because it appears that people don't understand within MSD what survivors have been through."

In Zentveld's case, that included getting electric shocks and paralysing injections. Zentveld and many other survivors told their stories before a Royal Commission into abuse in care in 2021.

Rutherford said Zentveld and others in his situation would have opted for a $150,000 rapid compensation payment partly so they didn't have to worry any more about bureaucratic stonewalling.

"Paul would have expected when he received that money that he could spend it as he liked, on what he liked, and that's what he did.

"And then he had a situation where, essentially, the MSD people were saying, 'If you keep that money in the bank as cash, we wouldn't have had a problem, but because you've bought a boat, we do'.

"That, fortunately, was overturned on the appeal, but that's what the frontline people were saying, and that's the sort of problem that the survivors were trying to avoid."

Human rights lawyer Lydia Oosterhoff said she was not surprised to hear about Zentveld's fight for his entitlement, given her clients' interactions with MSD.

"My experience is that the ministry treats survivors like a piece of dirt on the bottom of their shoe, a mere inconvenience. They don't see them as people. They see them as a risk that they need to pay to go away.

"The ministry does not appreciate that, often, survivors are in the situation that they are today because of what the state did to them in the past."

She was also not surprised that MSD wouldn't automatically review decisions about other Lake Alice survivors who had received compensation, saying she'd had similar struggles after winning a judicial review about abuse in care compensation.

The minister overseeing the response to the Royal Commission about abuse in care, Erica Stanford, was aware of MSD's decision about Zentveld's accommodation supplement.

"When this issue was first brought to my attention I raised it with my officials, the Crown Response Office, who engaged with MSD. It is my expectation that this is resolved as a matter of priority."