The Christchurch Civic Creche Case
	News Reports Index
	1994 Index
	The Evening Post September 20, 1994. Insight : Child Abuse Child abuse case : A salutary lesson Cynical plan The protestations of innocence by child abuser Peter Ellis were part of a cynical strategy to discredit children's evidence. by Wendy Ball Wendy Ball is a senior lecturer in law with post graduate qualifications focusing on children's evidence in child abuse cases. She has acted as a personal supporter and spokesperson for some of the complainant and non-complainant parents. On September 8 the Court of Appeal announced its judgment of Peter Ellis's appeal against conviction and sentence. The appeal was dismissed as "none of the grounds of appeal had been made out". The court expressed some doubt about the credibility of the retraction of one child complainant, but gave Ellis the benefit of the doubt by acquitting him of the three convictions relating to this child's evidence. However the sentence of imprisonment imposed on Peter Ellis is upheld. This case is one which has drawn extreme public comment because of a variety of factors - such things as the initial involvement of women co-defendants, the number of children involved, the so called "bizarre" nature of some of the allegations. Despite Ellis's conviction this comment has continued, but It is to be hoped that now that the Court of Appeal has upheld the conviction we will begin to see a more accurate and balanced approach to this case in particular, and to the whole area of child sexual abuse. It is also to be hoped that people's understanding of the nature of child sexual abuse will increase, and that as a result our children will be safer. After a depositions hearing lasting nine weeks, a High Court trial lasting six weeks and a full hearing by the Court of Appeal, Ellis's guilt has been established beyond reasonable doubt. He is a convicted pedophile. Peter Ellis has been convicted, of putting his penis in the mouths of three and four year old children, both at the creche and at an unknown address, of touching the anus or vagina of children with his, or an associate's penis, of touching the vagina or anus of children with his hand, of forcing children to masturbate Ellis and of urinating on children's faces. These are crimes of sexual violation, indecent assault and the doing or inducing of indecent acts on children under 12 years of age. A total of 118 children were interviewed by Children and Young Person's Service specialist interviewers. From these interviews there three categories were established: · Children who disclosed no abuse at the interview/s. · Children who disclosed abuse, but where police, parents or the child concerned decided not to proceed through the court process. · Children who disclosed abuse by Ellis and "others" and who proceeded as complainants. There have been many reports of other children not yet interviewed who have disclosed abuse occurring during their time at the Chnstchurch Civic Creche. There were two main grounds for Peter Ellis's appeal and the Justices (Cooke, Gault and Casey) were unanimous in their decision: 1. That the verdicts were unreasonable in that the evidence of the complainant children was not credible — appeal dismissed. 2. That there had been a miscarriage of justice — appeal dismissed. The argument by Ellis's counsel was that essentially the verdicts were unsafe because they relied on children's evidence. The court placed this appeal ground into two sub categories: (a) Circumstantial improbability: It was stated by the court that "great risks of detection may have been run, but that is not uncommon in cases of indulgence in a perversion". (b) The interview process (including each child complainant's evidence): Interviewers are required to act within the guidelines set down in the Evidence Amendment Act 1989 regulations when doing evidential interviews with children. A major part of the defence during the trial and also an appeal issue was the conduct of these interviews and the training and professionalism of the interviewers. The Court of Appeal judgment stated: "The professionalism of the three women who conducted the interviews is obvious from the transcripts and they gave evidence of their training and experience in this field. "There was criticism about some of their questions and of the way some evidence was elicited, but we are satisfied that this is of no real moment. "As the courts have said in a number of cases, when dealing with young children some coaxing and guidance is necessary to bring them to a point of disclosing abuse which many of them find embarrassing or distasteful and would rather forget. It is unreal to expect them to behave as mature adult witnesses and launch into their evidence with only minimal guidance in examination-in-chief." The Court of Appeal has dismissed once and for all the arguments put repeatedly by the defence in this case, arguments which have been purposefully manufactured into public myths by Ellis supporters and elements in the media; that the children lied about the abuse, that the interviewers put words in their mouths, that their parents pressured them into disclosing things that never happened. The Appeal Court has stated unequivocally that the children's evidence was credible and went into considerable detail to say why. It is now clearly established that the children were telling the truth. The truth was so frightening and distastful that it was difficult to tell. If children lie, they do it to get out of trouble not to get into it. The abuse which the children disclosed was beyond the worst imagination of the parents or police. They could not have made it up or been induced to say it. But if they had, then the interview process, analysis of their videos by expert witnesses and cross examination in court by the defence would have revealed this. In delivering their judgment on the children's credibility and the way the interviews were conducted, the Appeal Court repeated the words of the High Court judge in sentencing Ellis, saying the defence had given them no grounds to disagree: "The jury were in an unique position in this case. Unlike almost all of those who have publicly feasted off this case by expressing their opinions, the jury actually saw and heard each of the children. They also heard your own evidence and that of the other former Civic Creche workers. They disbelieved you. They believed the children and I agree with that assessment." The Court of Appeal stated: "Our overall judgment of the case is that after this long [High Court] trial the jury were fully justified in their conclusion that charges against the accused had been established beyond reasonable doubt . . . The jury deliberated for more than two days and brought in carefully discriminating verdicts that can be seen as conservative. The claims that the evidence of the children was contaminated by interviewing techniques, parental hysteria, or the like lack any solid basis. The whole matter has been very thoroughly and competently examined by counsel at the appeal hearing and as a result we have no misgivings about the outcome of the trial." The appeal judges also examined the defence's submission that there were miscarriages of justice in the way the High Court trial was conducted. They concluded that there was no miscarriage of justice. This judgment makes New Zealand much safer for two important groups of people. First and foremost, children are safe from Peter Ellis as long as he remains in prison. Secondly, child care workers are safe from any false allegations of abuse (however rare these may be) because, as can be seen by the above commentary, the judicial system has its own safeguards in place, and under the most rigorous judicial scrutiny, these safeguards were upheld. Ellis's continuing protestations of innocence are, at best, self-deluding lies. After all child abuse is a crime which has no mitigating circumstances. You cannot argue that you have done just a little bit of it, or did it under duress. If you did it, you did it. You can only either admit to it, or deny it completely. At worst these protestations are part of a cynical organised strategy to discredit children's evidence in order to keep the world safe for other child abusers. This last objective is being well served by those who continue to support Ellis after the court judgment. There is a problem in believing disclosures of sexual abuse by children. These disclosures are too horrible and the last people who want to believe things have happened to their children are parents. This is why many parents did not understand the signals their children were sending them while they were still at the creche. This is why parents could not understand their children's terror, their extreme inhibitions, their low self esteem and dysfunctional behaviour. They did not know other parents were going through the same thing. This is why parents did not want to believe the first halting disclosures made to them more explicitly once the children had left the creche and thus felt safe enough to speak. Parents hoped these initial disclosures were the sum of the abuse, and were then shaken again by increasingly appalling revelations of cruelty and emotional manipulation, which came once the children began to understand that the threats of physical violence made against them and their families should they speak may not come true. When told that some of his former creche friends had spoken of the abuse, a young boy now living in Australia said: "So they are all dead then." Now New Zealand society is confronted with the reality behind this case and is having trouble taking it in. Without even consciously realising it, many people seek to avoid its implications. It shakes our sense of ourselves as a civilised society and it raises the sewers beneath into full view. We focus instead on the victims who cannot answer back, the children. But the reality is that pre-school children are being abused in daycare centres. Over, the months ahead perhaps some commentators will take the time to read the court judgment. Perhaps the public will also understand the violence and fear that secured control of the children and which still affects them. The consistent repeating in the media by Ellis supporters of the arguments put by the defence, that the children lied, that words were put in their mouths, that they were pressured into disclosing things that never happened, has manipulated the public into thinking that a case which was in fact characterised by an overwhelming burden of proof against Ellis was borderline. The necessary suppression much incriminating evidence in the interest of a fair trial also allowed this impression to be fostered. From some of the media it appeared that the children and their parents were on trial, not the defendant and his associates. No one asked the questions: What interest do people have in making these allegations that children lie? Why are some of those who failed to keep the children safe now attacking the children? Why are people continuing to question a convicted pedophile's guilt? The Civic Creche parents are concerned that other children never suffer their own children's fate. With this in mind they want the public to realise that child sexual abuse does exist in our community, and that the only people who can testify to its existence are the children — the abused children. If we do not believe them the firm legal foundation for the protection of all New Zealand's children, which has been laid by the Court of Appeal in Ellis's case counts for nought.