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The
Christchurch Civic Creche Case |
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November 23,
1997 Full inquiry
essential in Ellis case. by Frank Haden Astonishing isn't it, the way people have turned around? They
wouldn't listen through all the years after Peter Ellis went to jail for
crimes he didn't commit, in fact were never committed by anyone. Now they're climbing on the bandwagon,
saying they knew all along it was a faulty investigation, a faulty trial, and
there should be an inquiry. Peter Ellis must be pardoned, and compensated on a scale
comparable with the money paid to another man railroaded into jail on
wrongful convictions, Arthur Allan Thomas.
But there must be a full judicial inquiry into how it happened, how
the community accepted wrongheaded behaviour by parents, social workers,
psychologists, jurors, trial judge Justice Williamson and the judges of the
Court of Appeal. It's no good having an inquiry into the way the police behaved,
especially if it is one of those self-serving, whitewash-seeking inquiries by
the Police Complaints Authority. Ellis said as much on Wednesday when he was told there would be
an inquiry. "What? You're joking!" he exclaimed. "This quick?
But what happens now?" He'd been expecting something to happen, he said, after the
revelations on 20/20 about Detective Colin Eade's obsession with getting
convictions in the creche case, and his affairs with mothers of children who
claimed they had been abused. Ellis was guarded in his comments, explaining that he didn't
want to do or say anything that would affect counsel Judith Ablett-Kerr's
approach to the Governor-General seeking a full pardon. But he did say he
hoped it would be a "decent inquiry", and that it would be held
quickly. "A Police Complaints Authority inquiry wouldn't be any
good, because that's just the police investigating themselves," he said. "There are so many other issues, involving other parties
such as the social workers, and the city council, in fact the whole way the
case was run, that it needs to be a full judicial investigation." The case has had tremendous repercussions, far beyond the
creche, the court and Rolleston Prison where Ellis is serving a 10-year
sentence for something he didn't do. Think of the effect on the children who
learned from their parents and professional interviewers what to say about
Peter Ellis. Each time I have talked
to him he has returned sooner or later to his concern for the way the kid's
lives have been ruined, the way they have been made to believe things have
happened to them that in fact never happened. The women creche workers accused by some of those confused
toddlers of having done the most bizarre, improbable, impossible things,
exposing their genitals to them in Satanic ritual circles, have also had
their lives ruined. Some of them can no longer go near children, any
children, or show them affection. The effect has multiplied like ripples spread from a flung
stone. Men who have never been near a
creche have changed their attitude towards children. Many of the bizree fairytales told by the
creche children after intensive and protracted browbeating by misguided
social workers originated in being been cleaned up by Peter after toilet
"accidents", and having their nappies changed. I have changed the nappies of my own siblings and children on
countless occasions. I am considered a dab hand at producing a neatly pinned
nappy. But there's no way I would ever touch a naked child again, thanks to
the perpetrators of the creche witch hunt.
Other men have told me their attitudes have changed the same way. A judicial inquiry must look at the improper behaviour by all
kinds of people once the hysterical witch hunt got under way. The parents behaved badly, prompted by guilt feelings about
going out to work and abandoning their vulnerable children to the care of
strangers. ACC staff behaved badly, rushing to parents waving application
forms for $10,000 claims, encouraging them to sign up for a share of the
eventual half a million dollars shelled out for non-existent abuse. The police behaved badly - and it wasn't just Colin Eade. He was
eagerly assisted and encouraged by other officers. City Council staff behaved badly in jumping to conclusions and
believing too quickly the manifestly nonsensical allegations about their
employees. The prosecutors behaved badly, in sifting out allegations they
knew the jury would never accept and going to trial with allegations, from
the same children, which they thought had a fair chance of getting the jurors
to accept. Trial judge Justice Williamson behaved badly, in failing to
assure himself there was nothing untoward about the jury selection, in
refusing to let the jury hear bizarre testimony which would have established
the unreliability of the child witnesses, and in making available to the jury
prosecution transcripts but not those of the defence. The Court of Appeal behaved badly, in endorsing the trial
verdict in the face of the firm statement, consistently maintained
thereafter, by the most convincing child witness that she had lied to the
court and Ellis had never done anything to her. Worst of all was the behaviour of the people central to the
case: The social welfare interviwers and amateur psychologists who believe in
satanic rituals and accept the monstrous lie that children always tell the
truth about sex abuse. That's what the
Peter Ellis trial was about: The dreadful lie that children must always be
believed. A proper inquiry into all aspects of the case, not just the part
played by a naive and foolish policeman, will put an end forever to the
baleful, destructive power of the Christchurch psychologists and welfare
workers who were denied a victim in the Glenelg Health Camp case, denied a
victim in the hospital children's ward case, and moved in frustration against
Peter Ellis, determined to get a sacrificial goat by hook or by crook. They must be "disempowered" to use their jargon, along
with the ritual garbage they spout, miscalling allegations
"disclosures" and admissions of having lied "being in
denial."
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