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The
Press
November 21, 1997
Police defend investigation
NZPA
The morals of a detective involved in the creche inquiry had no bearing on
its outcome, Police Association president Greg O'Connor said.
He was appalled that former detective Colin Eade's relationships with two of
the complainants' mothers was now being used in Peter Ellis's defence. ``The
detective's behaviour may have been inappropriate, but the relationships
occurred after the inquiry had finished and he'd left the police,'' Mr O'Connor
said.
Allegations about Mr Eade's behaviour were made on a 20/20 television
documentary on Sunday night.
Mr O'Connor said he was astounded at the public and political reaction to
``one very unbalanced television programme''.
``What we are seeing here is an example of how any good defence lawyer
operates. You take a peripheral issue and turn the whole thing around to
focus on that. It's trivia and detracts from the case,'' he said.
The conviction of Ellis as a pedophile was upheld on appeal.
``Where is the consideration for the victims and their families of this
one-sided information we are getting from this documentary? They are forced
to relive their pain every time the issue resurfaces,'' he said.
Colin Eade yesterday admitted he propositioned a mother of one of the
children at the centre of the 1992 inquiry.
He said he made ``an inappropriate comment'' to a mother of one of the
children during a phone call after coming home from ``a night out on the
town''.
``I have deeply regretted it ever since and the next day I spoke to that
parent and in a pretty pathetic attempt to justify it, I said I was joking
and the result of that was she made a complaint,'' he said yesterday.
He confirmed he had relationships with two other women connected to the case
after the case ended. ``One of them was involved in the case, the other one
was part of the general parent group at the creche.''
Mr Eade said the relationships happened after the inquiry and after he had
left the police.
He said allegations that he was mentally unstable were not true. ``Look, I
was under stress during the inquiry but then every member on the inquiry was.
There are three of us that are no longer in the police that was on the
inquiry team.''
He said he left the police on psychological grounds relating to stress. He
was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder which he suffered during
the inquiry.
The Canterbury
police's district manager Warwick Nicholl said the police had no difficulty
with an inquiry into police conduct during the creche inquiry.
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