For more than five years, New Zealand investigative journalist Aaron Smale has been digging into the injustices - and crimes - of the state welfare system of Aotearoa New Zealand. Of all the unbelievable events he has investigated, none is more shocking than what happened at Lake Alice.

In this new seven-part podcast by Stuff and Popsock Media, Smale talks to the survivors of one of the darkest chapters of modern New Zealand history, when children were committed to an adult psychiatric institution, often on flimsy pretexts, and then subjected to “treatment” that was in fact something much more like torture.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices