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The
Christchurch Civic Creche Case |
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November 22,
1997
Is the case against Peter Ellis,
convicted of child sex offences, a miscarriage of justice? JOHN GOULTER, reporting from Christchurch,
finds opinion firmly, heatedly, divided. Side bar (with photo of Ellis, Peter
Ellis awaits appeal)
"I'm just an ordinary Kiwi joker, as homophobic as the next bloke ...
But I just couldn't let them get away with this. (Winston Wealleans, Ellis supporter) The child came home from day care and said, "He showed me
him's penis" The alarmed parent called other parents who had recently
attended a seminar on ritual sexual abuse, so they knew what to look for. Authorities were called in, and within months a male worker at
the centre was arrested on numerous charges, including forcing children to
eat faeces and urine, tying them up or locking them in cupboards and taking
them to secret locations for games of naked dancing and worse. The abuse had allegedly gone unnoticed for years, before the
first child's comment sparked any fears. The worker became a monster who had terrorised the children in
his care, and parents were warned that he might be merely the beginning of a
much wider circle of abuse, through all levels of society. Additional charges were considered against women co-workers at
the centre. The worker was not Peter Ellis at the Christchurch Civic
Childcare Centre, but Dale Akiki in San Diego, whose case became one of the
most notorious in a rash of ritual abuse cases that flared across the United
States in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Peter Ellis cam under suspicion when a child went home and
mentioned "Peter's black penis" The inquiry subsequently unearthed similar allegations of cages,
sex-games and secret outings. Ellis is now nearly halfway through a 10-year prison term for
his convictions of sexual abuse. But there are mounting doubts as to whether the abuse happened
at all or whether the Christchurch investigators, determined to "believe
the children" at all costs, went down a path unwittingly fabricated by
worried parents and suggestible children. It has happened before. In the United States, ritual and out
gorageous abuse seemingly became rife about a decade ago, and an industry
grew up to identify and support the victims. Now, stricter child interviewing techniques by therapists and a
re-evaluation of police procedures has cast doubt on many of the cases. A jury eventually acquitted Akiki, and more than a dozen similar
high profile cases involving bizarre child abuse in day-care centres have
been overturned by United States appeal courts since 1990, usually because
the children's evidence was found to be unreliable. Since Ellis was convicted on 16 charges of abuse in 1993, his
supporters have argued that his acse marked New Zealand's introduction to the
same hysteria about child abuse, with the same false conclusions. "I'm absolutely convinced that Peter is innocent,"
says one of his supporters, Winston Wealleans. He has become virtually a fulltime campaigner for the Ellis
cause since his wife, working part-time at the creche, watched in disbelief
as initial allegations snowballed. "Peter is the victim of a nightmare that just got out of
hand. Once it started, there was no stopping it." As they see it, Ellis became a target for well meaning, liberal
parents who lost all sense of perspective after they became convinced that
abuse was a dirty secret in respectable society that must be outed. In their conviction, supporters say, they came to believe that
Ellis was capable of unspeakable horrors and, to the wider Christchurch
public, the gay, flamboyant Ellis fitted the role perfectly." "I'm an ordinary Kiwi joker, as homophobic as the next
bloke," Mr Wealleans says, "and sometimes Peter was a bit over the
top for me. But I just couldn't let
them get away with this. Somebody had
to see reason." Mr Wealleans has been working for years with a group of
Christchurch people to overturn the conviction. He has collected a battery f documents and other evidence that
he believes points to a sloppy ploice investigation and serious failings on
the part of the day-care centre owners, the Christchurch City Council, and
the Department of Social Welfare workers who questioned the children. Mr Wealleans and his group want a retrial, or preferably an
outright pardon. They hope that last
week's revelations on TV3's 20/20 will finally lead to such an outcome. The programme alleged that two jurors had links with the
prosecution or a complainant's mother, and that the detective who headed the
inquiry, Colin Eade, had relationships with two of the children's mothers
after he had resigned from the police, and had earlier propositioned another
mother during the inquiry. Mr Eade confirmed this week that he made "an inappropriate
comment" that was a "proposition" to a mother of one of the
children during a phone call. He told National Radio the comment was made in all seriousness
but "in sober reflection the next day, it was retracted." He also confirmed having relationships with two other women
connected with the case after it was over and after he had left the police. Police this week announced an inquiry into their handling of the
case. But Ellis supporters want a much wider review. Among their
concerns, they cite: ·
The recanting of evidence by one of the
children, whose testimony was crucial. ·
The sparking of allegations by a
sexual-abuse counsellor who has made similar, unproven, allegations
elsewhere. ·
Rumour and speculation among parents,
which may have "contaminated" the children's evidence. ·
Repeated and allegedly leading
interviews of children by Social Welfare investigators. ·
The quality of the evidence on which
four female creche workers were originally charged, before the case against
them was dropped. ·
The withholding of the most extreme
evidence from the jury that heard the case. ·
The lack of any corroborating evidence
or unsolicited complaints. So far, the Ellis conviction has stood impregnable to the
doubts. The Court of Appeal upheld the conviction in 1994 and the
cabinet in 1995 rejected a call for an inquiry. The Police Association spokesman, Greg O'Connor, on National
Radio criticised the television programme as unbalanced, this week adding: "Look at the evidence. It was heard by the jury, it was
heard by the judge. The judge took the
unusual step at the end of the trial of commenting that he agreed with the
jury's decision" A Dunedin QC, Judith Ablett-Kerr, recently hired by Ellis
supporters, has been investigating taking the case to the Privy Council and
now plans to file an appeal for pardon with the Governor General next Friday. In Christchurch, the case has lost none of its emotional grip. The children concerned are now approaching their teens, but few
of the parents have let go of the trauma.
To them, the case remains one of the city's most infamous, and they
say that more is yet to be exposed. To others, it is infamous for altogether different reasons - an
episode when anxious parents, ideologically driven social workers, zealous
police and a gullible public conspired to create one of New Zealand's worst
miscarriages of justice. |
