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The
Daily News
April 3 1999
Potter release rankles against Ellis denial
Editorial
Even Tau
Henare is not wrong all the time. Child sex abuser
Bert Potter, said the Mauri Pacific leader, should
have been kept locked up indefinitely. Instead, the 73-year-old Centrepoint commune leader has been released after nine
years' jail, and has returned to the scene of his crimes without a skerrick of remorse and no chance of even an apology to
the girls he molested. In fact, he smugly told reporters this week that sex
between adults and girls under 16 could be "a very healthy thing"
and that he would be abstaining only because of his parole conditions and his
not wanting to go back to prison.
Sixteen is set in New Zealand
law as the age at which a young woman can marry, which is mostly a rather
quaint euphemism for having sex. Bert Potter is undoubtedly correct when he
implies that there are girls under this age who are physically and
emotionally capable of such a relationship -- but it is not widely considered
to be a wonderfully healthy thing for them to be sleeping with creepy old men
like him. And any lowering of the age of consent is more likely to be
exploited by the Bert Potters of this world than teenage boys. Therefore, the
arbitrary line in the hormones has been drawn at 16 -- however much he might
regret it.
This, however, diverts from Tau Henare's complaint. He,
like many others, is angry that the parole authorities would release a
boastfully unredeemed paedophile like Potter, yet
refuse to release the equally eligible Peter Ellis, whose conviction for
abusing children at a Christchurch
creche looks more wobbly with every passing month.
Ellis has the gall to continue denying the seven charges successfuly
brought against him in 1991 -- one of which has since been recanted by the
girl involved. His alleged acts of satanic ritual abuse, involving dozens of
children, in tunnels and cages; knives, needles and murder; several adults --
including his mother; all of it unnoticed for five years, have been seriously
investigated by newspapers, magazines and TV programmes,
none of which has been able to support the jury's decision.
Potter cheerfully admits his
crimes, on a technicality. Ellis bitterly denies them. His parole officers
say they are unable to release the former creche worker
unless he admits guilt and faces up to the error of his ways. Ellis has no
such guilt. He -- and his mother -- have convinced
most of New Zealand
that he is the victim of witch-hunting parents, triggered into panic by
satanic cult rumours. More worrying is the poss-ibility that he has wasted six years of his life
because of the now-tainted dogma of always believing the children, no matter
how young -- or how imaginative. Under the cloud that now shadows the Ellis
case, his parole board rejection, and Potter's release, looks extremely
unfair.
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