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The Evening Post
August 26 1996
Creche claim decision reserved
Public perceptions of sexual abuse
were created when Christchurch City Council allowed the civic creche to be
closed and employees initially made redundant, counsel for the employees told
the Court of Appeal on Friday.
Christchurch City Council was appealing Employment Court decisions that said
the council had unjustifiably dismissed Gaye Davidson and 13 other workers
from the civic creche.
The court of five judges reserved its decision.
Former creche employee Peter Ellis was found guilty of sexually abusing
children there between 1986 and 1992.
Gaye Davidson and three other women were later accused of sexual abuse of
children at the creche. The charges were dismissed. Costs of more than
$863,000 were awarded for loss of career and compensation.
Counsel for Ms Davidson and the other workers, Hans van Schreven, said city
manager John Gray had, after meeting police and Education Ministry officials
on September 3, 1992, accepted their views that the creche must close.
Mr van Schreven said that led Mr Gray not to oppose the suspension of the
creche licence by the Ministry.
"If suspension or closure was so critical to the police or Ministry, it
seems odd the Ministry did not have a suspension notice at the time of the
meeting," he said.
Mr van Schreven said Mr Gray could have done something to persuade the
Ministry not to suspend the licence.
He should have gone to the employees and put the allegations to them, he
said.
Court of Appeal president Sir Ivor Richardson asked what Mr Gray was supposed
to have done when the police told him he could not tell anyone.
Mr van Schreven said the first notice given to employees at the creche
informed them they were being made redundant. The next morning they were
given an amended notice putting them on suspension. "But by then the
damage was done. The next day outside the creche and union offices were the
TV cameras and the media," he said.
He said the Employment Court judge awarded different amounts to each person
as he had reflected on the differing impacts the circumstance had on each
person.
Mr van Schreven said the court should not interfere with the awards unless
they were perceived to be a punishment or condemnatory of the council.
He said the former employees would be unable to work in childcare again,
"There is a link between dismissal and the loss of their careers,
because . . . the public way the termination was delivered to them condemned
them all to the same fate," he said.
Counsel for the council Julian Miles QC said there was nothing the council or
the union could have done over the weeks after the first meeting with police
that would have made the slightest difference to the suspension or closure of
the creche.
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