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Otago Daily Times
Wednesday, 7-July 1999
Jury ignorant of officer's stress, court told
NZPA
Wellington: If the jury that convicted Peter
Ellis had been aware of the extent of the investigating officer's stress and
his relationships with mothers he was investigating, "it would have made
hay" with the information, the Court of Appeal in Wellington was told
yesterday.
In the second day of Ellis' second appeal against his 1993 convictions for
sexual abuse, his counsel, Judith Ablett-Kerr, strongly opposed opinion from
the Bench that the competence of former detective Colin Eade was beyond the
scope of the hearing.
Justice Gault said Governor-General Sir Michael Hardie Boys had declined to
review the competence of Mr Eade, adding: "In the light of that, I think
you're overdoing it."
Mrs Ablett-Kerr replied: "My purpose has been to demonstrate
contaminating factors . . . if the jury had had [access to withheld
documents] they would have made hay with them.
"Detective Eade escaped relatively unscathed."
Mrs Ablett-Kerr referred to various documents that had not been disclosed by
the Crown to the defence.
In relation to Mr Eade, these highlighted his, at times, extreme stress, and
his "inappropriate" telephone behaviour with a mother of one of the
children.
She also suggested he may have been unqualified for a mass allegation case of
such scope as the Peter Ellis investigation.
"The job required someone who was cool and of a steady mind, someone who
perhaps was experienced in this type of arena."
Among other documents she said had not been disclosed, was a police report
that showed early police concern about parents reading literature on ritual
abuse.
Similarly undisclosed had been a document showing police concern about
parents being in "a frenzy" at an early creche meeting, before
charges were made against Ellis.
Photographs had not been made available to the defence, including one from a
creche parent, seized by the police, that showed the unlikelihood that the
alleged abuse, which supposedly happened in the creche toilets, would not be
seen by other creche workers.
Speaking of repeated parental interviewing of their children, Mrs Ablett-Kerr
said: "In my submission, the extent of interviewing by parents in this
case was highly unusual."
One parent had relayed her version of what another child's mother had said to
her daughter, saying: "This is what [the girl] has said. Did it happen
to you?"
"If a professional interviewer did that, I have no doubt that it would
have been thrown out," she said.
Just how vulnerable to suggestion children were, could be seen in one child
who, in a professional interview, used the words "clitoris" and
"vulva".
"These types of words, in my submission, are unusual for a child."
When Justice Gault suggested the judiciary was well aware of the pitfalls in
sex abuse case evidence, Mrs Ablett-Kerr said: "It's the accumulation of
these cases.
"When they are drawn together in the context of a mass allegation
scenario, they assume a different significance."
Asked to explain the similarities between ritual abuse allegations in
different cases around the world, she said they were either fantasy or
implanted.
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