Electric Shock Trauma: Survivors Seek Answers and Action

New revelations about the NHS’s historical use of Electric Shock Aversion Therapy (ESAT) have exposed a deeply troubling chapter in British healthcare.

According to a BBC investigation, more than 250 people, many of them teenagers, were subjected to painful electric shocks between 1965 and 1973 in attempts to change their sexuality or gender identity. Experts now believe the real figure could be closer to 1,000.

For survivors, the trauma remains vivid. And as public pressure mounts for a formal apology, a parallel question is emerging: What does justice look like for people harmed by a medical or state-run system that was meant to protect them?

This question goes far beyond the NHS. Similar aversive “treatments” were also widely practiced within the Army and other military services, often under strict hierarchy and without meaningful consent. For some service personnel, these experiences were every bit as coercive and damaging as those described in civilian hospitals.

“It did damage me”: the voices of survivors

The BBC reports that three electric shock survivors, Pauline Collier, Jeremy Gavins and Carolyn Mercer, have come forward to describe what happened to them as young, vulnerable patients who were often referred by teachers, clergy or GPs.

Pauline recalls electrodes taped to her arms and a series of shocks strong enough to make her sweat and involuntarily jerk. She believes she underwent around 20 sessions.

Now 80, she believes her vulnerability was exploited.

Jeremy was shocked unconscious at 17. He remembers being stripped, strapped to a chair and shocked repeatedly “like a jagged knife” being dragged through his arm. At one point, he lost consciousness and woke up in hospital three days later.

He has lived with PTSD, depression, and lifelong relationship difficulties, saying he was “too frightened” to form intimate connections for 50 years.

Carolyn was just 17 and confided in a local priest that she felt female rather than male. She was sent for electric shock sessions that left her in tears, her body convulsing.

“That treatment wasn’t therapy. It was torture,” she said.

A widespread but hidden practice – including in the military

Historian Prof Hel Spandler suggests ESAT was far more common than previously recorded. Many treatments were never formally logged, often carried out quietly by doctors, courts, schools and other institutions.

Your additional insight is absolutely aligned with this pattern: this sort of treatment was also widely practiced in the Army and other military services, where it similarly went far beyond anything that could be considered reasonable. In both NHS and military contexts:

• The treatment amounted to torture, not therapy.
• The idea that anyone – especially a teenager or junior service member – could give informed consent to such a barbaric practice is unimaginable.
• Individuals were targeted simply for being themselves.
• The physical and psychological consequences have been profound and lifelong.

Some survivors were left with scarring, nerve pain and long-term physical injury. But in many cases, the psychological injuries have been even more damaging:

• an inability to trust others
• difficulty forming relationships
• breakdowns in family life
• loss of career stability
• enduring PTSD and depression

These consequences echo those seen in military injury claims, where service personnel harmed by institutional decisions, including harmful medical practices, seek accountability many years later.

Government response and calls for apology

Following the BBC investigation, the government has confirmed it will review the historical use of ESAT in NHS settings.

Minister for Equalities Olivia Bailey called the practice “abuse” and committed to banning conversion practices fully.

But survivors, campaigners and legal experts argue that a ban is not enough.

Our injury claims expert, Diane Askwith, speaks out:

Treatment of this nature should never be condoned, which is all the more distressing when it was provided to individuals simply for being themselves and who did not need to have it. I wholly support a full apology from the Government and NHS to anybody who has been affected.

Where does justice fit in – and how does this relate to personal and military injury claims?

Beyond recognition, many survivors understandably ask whether legal redress is possible.

In modern law, physical and psychiatric injuries caused by negligent or abusive practices can form the basis of a personal injury claim, even decades later in some circumstances, particularly where:

• The harm was not understood or disclosed at the time
• There was coercion or inequality of power
• The injured person was young or vulnerable
• Institutions failed in their duty of care

These principles are equally relevant to military injury claims, where veterans have successfully sought compensation for:

• unsafe or experimental treatments
• psychological injury caused by institutional decisions
• practices later recognised as abusive
• environments where consent was compromised by hierarchy

The parallels are hard to ignore.

Both NHS survivors and affected service personnel describe a shared pattern of:

• institutional control
• lack of consent
• coercive authority
• lifelong psychological harm
• delayed recognition of wrongdoing

A moment of reckoning across institutions

The BBC’s revelations shine a harsh light on the historical misuse of medical authority. But they also fit into a wider pattern of people harmed by state-backed practices, whether in hospitals, schools or military services.

For the hundreds, possibly thousands affected, justice may involve:

• A full government apology
• Public acknowledgement of harm
• Access to support services
• Possible routes to compensation for those whose lives were profoundly damaged

What matters most is that their suffering is finally recognised, and never again dismissed as “treatment.”