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The
Evening Standard
November 21, 1997
Inquiry should be independent
Editorial
The issue of whether justice was done in the Christchurch Civic Creche
child-abuse case has been debated since day one -- and will not go away
easily. The fact that police are now to investigate themselves aspects of
their own handling of the case, including allegations concerning the
detective heading the inquiry, is scarcely likely to reassure those who are
convinced creche worker Peter Ellis was innocent of the charges, did not get
a fair trial, and has already been wrongly imprisoned for four years.
Those who have been campaigning on behalf of Ellis now have a number of MPs,
including some in the coalition Government, supporting their cause. Alliance
MP Rod Donald, whose partner was on the creche management committee and who
had a daughter at the creche, says he believes there was a witchhunt against
Ellis, and that at another time in history he may have been burned at the
stake. New Zealand First MP Rana Waitai, a former police district commander,
says all his instincts, honed during his 31 years as a police officer, tell
him there is something "terribly wrong and unjust" in the Ellis
case. Labour MP Phil Goff, his party's justice spokesman, says he has
"long had an unease" about the case based on a number of things
including accusations, made by the children, that were not presented to the
jury because they were "so bizarre and incredible that they would have
damaged the credibility of the entire case". NZ First senior whip Ron
Mark says he believes in Ellis' innocence, and his party colleagues have
agreed to do what they can "to ensure that the injustice dealt to this
man does not continue". Given what the senior whip says about the
support of his colleagues, it is unfortunate for Ellis that granting him a
pardon was not negotiated as one of the clauses in the coalition agreement.
MPs are just as likely to be deluded as anyone else, of course, in their
convictions. But given the increased level of debate about the trial and
conviction, it must be presumed that when former detective Colin Eade, who
headed the case, says Ellis was "guilty without a doubt", he is
basically confirming the lack of doubt in his own mind, and not referring to
the doubt which exists in the minds of so many others.
Doubt is the operative word, as it has been in many other cases in recent
years. Surely it has now become time, when so many areas of major doubt are
raised about whether justice has been done in a particular case, for the
first step not to be automatically simply to ask the police to hold an
internal investigation, and to pronounce on their own handling of the case.
That is not to pre-judge the outcome of the police investigation, or to say
there was anything wrong with the way the case was handled or justice was
dispensed. It is merely to say that the public relations interests of the
police would also be better served, in such important cases, if the
investigation or review was carried out by an independent judicial authority
from the outset. The argument for doing so in the Ellis case is even stronger
because the performance of organisations other than the police is also in
question.
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