QUB: Call for gay aversion therapy apology

It has been revealed that a student was shown pictures of naked men and given electric shocks if he was aroused, in the 1960s and 1970s.

QUB has expressed regret for using the therapy.

However Phil Scraton, an emeritus professor in the QUB school of law, said this was “insufficient” and called for a public apology.

He told the BBC: “It should reveal the scope and detail of all experiments conducted whether or not they involved electric shocks.

“While the university today should not be held accountable for historic failings, it should make a full public apology.”

Prof Scraton taught a masters’ class focusing on gender, sexuality and violence.

He was speaking after a man told BBC News NI how in the late 1960s he was referred to the department of mental health at Queen’s University for electrical aversion therapy, with sessions taking place at Belfast City Hospital.

Prof Scraton said: “Queens and any other organisations involved should identify the inter-departmental scope and longevity of the research projects, their ethical approval and their financing.”

In response, a spokesperson for Queen’s said: “The university has no records of this therapy taking place here or elsewhere on the university’s behalf. Research data from this era were not kept for more than 15 years.

“The university regrets that this method was ever used by any organisation in any situation.”

‘John’ said he had grown up in the 1950s in a rural Northern Ireland town and was initially referred to counselling at a local hospital. However, when he studied at QUB in the late 1960s, he said he was referred to the department of mental health at the university.

He identified a psychologist at QUB as the person responsible for his aversion therapy.

BBC News NI has accessed a research paper on electrical aversion therapy published in the Ulster Medical Journal in 1973 which was co-authored by the psychologist and also lists a number of academic authors from QUB’s departments of mental health, social studies and psychology.

Belfast Trust said it did not hold records going back to this period, but it did “express regret to those who were subjected to this horrendous ordeal”.