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A member of the jury that
convicted childcare worker Peter Ellis is claimed to have said he was
sexually aroused by evidence at the trial -- and had professional links with
the expert psychiatrist called by the prosecution, the Ministry of Justice
has been told. The alleged disclosure by the
juror in an interview with an author, including that he imagined Peter
Ellis's excitement in a sexual act with a child complainant, may not be
investigated at appeal because crucial evidence is not being made available.
Concerns about the juror's admission that he was sexually aroused by some of
the evidence at the 1993 trial, are raised in correspondence between Ellis's
lawyer, Judith Ablett Kerr, and Justice Ministry chief legal counsel Val Sim. According to the correspondence,
leaked to The Dominion, the author of a forthcoming book on Ellis, Minnie
Dean biographer Lynley Hood, has refused to issue a taped interview with the
juror because of an undertaking made to him. Included in Ms Ablett Kerr's
correspondence is an affidavit signed by barrister Simon Barr of what he was
told by Ms Hood of interview details. These include that the juror found
something about one of the child complainants "sexual" and that he
could imagine how Peter Ellis could find aspects of the assault
"exciting". The affidavit further says that
the juror had to go to counselling because of his feelings -- and that he
himself had had a counselling role in a church before the trial. Through his counselling work, the
affidavit says, he knew Dr Karen Zelas, the expert psychiatrist called on behalf of the
prosecution, and had invited her as a speaker to his counselling clinic. The revelations led Ms Ablett Kerr
to urge that a commission of inquiry be urgently appointed to investigate
"if necessary, only this issue". She also asks that Ms Hood be
interviewed and ordered to produce the tape. She urges as a matter "of the
utmost importance" that the issue is addressed by the minister of
justice and the Court of Appeal. However, a letter from Ms Sim to Ms Ablett Kerr says there may not be enough
evidence of jurors' misconduct to justify consideration by the Court of
Appeal. "We accept that the level of
proof required in cases of alleged misconduct by jurors may be less than
proof beyond reasonable doubt, but do not consider that unsubstantiated
comments from a third party operates as a sufficient trigger to require us to
investigate," Ms Sim writes. "Are you able to provide a
better evidentiary basis for the complaints?" Ms Ablett Kerr's correspondence
also expresses disquiet about the unavailability to Ms Ablett Kerr of any
evidence of subsequent retractions by many of Ellis's child accusers. It cites a 1997 television
interview with then TV3 20/20 producer Melanie Reid, in which police
investigator Detective Colin Eade said he would be
"surprised" if most of the children had not retracted. Yet she had been advised that
neither the police nor the crown solicitor were aware of any retractions. Jurors' credibility was earlier
brought into question after 20/20's revelations that jury foreman Peter
Williams had been the marriage celebrant at the wedding of crown prosecutor
Brent Stanaway, and that a woman jury member failed
to declare that she was in a lesbian relationship with a woman who worked
with the mother of one of the child accusers. That programme
also revealed that Mr Eade
had a history of psychiatric problems, including an obsessional
personality, and that he had had intimate relationships with two of the
complainants' mothers -- and been rejected by a third. In her letter to Ms Sim, Ms Ablett Kerr expresses anger at Ms Hood's decision
not to share her evidence. "I am at a loss to understand how anyone
could see that the reserving of that information for publication in a book
could possibly take precedence over an inquiry by the governor-general (Sir
Michael Hardie Boys) and minister of justice (Tony Ryall) into the correctness of criminal convictions and
consequent lengthy incarceration of an individual." Ms Hood would not comment last
night. |
