Solicitor-General 'doesn't get' former Lake Alice patient's concerns during Royal Commission

A former Lake Alice mental patient says she's appalled at the Solicitor-General's comments to the Abuse in Care Royal Commission.

Leonie McInroe was 12 when she was a patient at Lake Alice in the mid-1970s, where she was punished with drugs, seclusion, and electroconvulsive therapy with no anaesthetic.

In 1994 she sought redress from the Crown which took nearly a decade.

"[It] retraumatised me, intimidated me and bullied me over a period of nine years," she said.

Solicitor-General Una Jagose QC was cross-examined on Tuesday and said in McInroe's case there were delays "that shouldn't have happened".

She also said she accepted the Crown had proof of unlawful treatment, but fell short of answering why that proof wasn't used when assessing McInroe's claims.

"I don't know. It's right that that is questioned, how can that be? But I can't answer it," she said.

Some years into McInroe's litigation she was subjected to a clinical assessment, which she said further traumatised her.

Jagose said: "I readily agree - that could have been done differently."

McInroe said she's disappointed with Jagose's comments.

"She doesn't get it," she said, but she believes Jagose's legal background helped her delivery.

"So she should be able to articulate and convince people of anything."

It comes after McInroe addressed the Commission in September.

"I am overwhelmed by the obvious and blatant abuse of power. I am overwhelmed at the strategies, tactics and extreme lengths the Crown went to oppress me," she said at the time.

She said the Solicitor-General's apparent unpreparedness on Tuesday frustrated her, when for McInroe this process is "so" significant.

"I never thought the day would come that I would have the opportunity to say this is how I was treated, I never thought that would come," McInroe said.

Her confidence in the Crown to deal with future cases is non-existent.

"They are simply not capable."

The Solicitor-General will continue to be cross-examined on Wednesday and a full investigation by the Commission into Lake Alice is likely next year.