Video: sex abuse of male patient by "Dr. Shock" Aubrey Levin, military psychiatrist who "cured" gays, apartheid refuseniks — he was finally locked up this week

Aubrey "Dr. Shock" Levin (foreground) in custody in 2010

Jim Burroway of Box Turtle Bulletin reports that Aubrey Levin, a 74-year-old South African who moved to Calgary, Alberta to resume his ex-gay "therapy" has begun serving a five year sentence for fondling male patients. His wife has been charged with defeating the ends of justice by offering a female juror an envelope with cash inside in an attempt to get her to find her husband not guilty.
     Among allegations leveled at Levin was that in South Africa he used severe electric shocks to effect “aversion therapy” designed to “cure” homosexuals. “Political deviants” (i.e., those who refused to bear arms in the apartheid forces) also were sent to Levin, in charge of the major psychiatric wing of the military hospital at Voortrekkerhoogte in Pretoria and later the apartheid government’s head of mental health.
     In Canada, authorities refused to believe a 36-year-old former patient, on probation and ordered to see Levin, when he told them Levin was sexually abusing him. Eventually the patient went to an appointment with a hidden camera which recorded Levin undoing his jeans and fondling him. Two other accusers were also patients of Levin’s while under court order.



     Johannesburg, South Africa's Daily Maverick recounts Levin's activities in that country and his immigration to Canada:

Trudie Grobler, an intern psychologist at 1 Military Hospital, witnessed an aversion therapy session where a woman suspected of being a lesbian was shocked so hard that her shoes flew off her feet. “I couldn’t believe that her body could survive it all,” Grobler later said. One man given hormone treatment at Levin’s hospital found that his “whole body and hormone system developed abnormally.” He told Aversion Project researchers: “I look like a woman because of the induced testosterone abnormality”. This man, named as “Neil”, committed suicide before the Aversion Project study was published. As a result of the research process he decided to explore litigation, only to discover that all medical records from his military stint had been expunged.
     But the man who presided over it all, Aubrey Levin, got away scot-free. Levin moved to the city of Calgary, in Canada, in 1995, after reportedly living for a while in Grahamstown. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission never issued a subpoena for him, so he did not testify there. In Canada, Levin seemed able to make a perfectly clean start. He briefly served as regional director for the Regional Psychiatric Centre in Saskatoon, and was licensed in 1998 to practice psychiatry in Alberta (the province which holds the city of Calgary). Levin was subsequently appointed clinical professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of Calgary’s medical school.
      It is only since Levin was arrested on charges of sexual assault in 2010 that the Canadian media seems to have done any digging into his past. Part of the reason for this might be Levin’s fondness for litigation: he has several times threatened to sue publications which made reference to his Apartheid history.