|
The
Press
November 20, 1997
Ellis probe on ex-detective
by Martin Van Beynen
Police will investigate a key figure in the controversial Christchurch Civic
Childcare Centre case.
Police Commissioner Peter Doone announced this yesterday after he was
questioned about a former detective's conduct by the parliamentary justice
and law reform select committee.
Answering Labour Justice spokesman Phil Goff, Commissioner Doone said he
would respond to requests for a formal investigation.
``I can assure you that if there are any ethical, procedural, or fairness
breaches on the part of the police at the end of that stage I will take every
step to ensure that justice will be done,'' he said.
The nature of the inquiry would be determined after consultation with the
Police Complaints Authority, he said later.
The allegations that prompted the select committee's concerns and renewed
doubts about the case were raised by a TV3 20/20 report on Sunday.
Former creche worker Peter Ellis was found guilty of abusing children in his
care after a trial in 1993. He has now served four years of a 10-year jail
sentence. The programme alleged former detective Colin Eade, who left the
police after Ellis's trial, had intimate relationships with two mothers of
complainant children and propositioned a third during the early stages of the
inquiry.
It was suggested he was psychologically unfit to be on the inquiry and did
not behave objectively.
As well, the programme said, a woman juror failed to disclose that she knew
the mother of one of the complainants.
The Minister of Justice, Doug Graham, said yesterday that it would be
inappropriate to comment while an application to the Governor-General to have
Ellis pardoned was pending.
Ellis's lawyer, Judith Ablett-Kerr, QC, confirmed that the application would
be presented to the Governor-General on November 28.
``Any inquiry is a positive step but the problem with this case has always
been that any review has only looked at small parts. What's needed is for the
whole thing to be reviewed to find out what went wrong,'' she said.
The pardon application would encompass several significantly disturbing
aspects of the case, she said.
The case has always been controversial, with doubts focusing on many aspects,
including:
The way allegations of abuse at the creche were initiated by a sexual-abuse
counsellor with a psychiatric history.
How rumour and parental networking may have contaminated the testimony of
children.
The flimsy and bizarre evidence on which four women creche workers were
charged.
The methods used to interview the children, in cluding multiple interviews
and other discredited techniques.
The bizarre and contradictory nature of the children's evidence as recorded
by Social Welfare interviewers.
The extreme difficulty Ellis would have had to perpetrate the abuse in the
busy creche.
The lack of corroborating evidence and any unsolicited complaint from creche
children about Ellis.
The failure of the jury to see all the interviews recorded with the
complainant children.
An appeal against the verdicts failed, but calls for the case to be reopened
have continued.
New Zealand First MP Ron Mark called for Ellis to be pardoned or at the very
least to be given a new trial.
``I have always suspected Mr Ellis's conviction was due to an unprecedented
level of hysteria, rather than fact.''
|
