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Metro
August 1999
A Parent Writes
Letter to the Editor
by Iain Mitchell,
(Rotorua)
My son was five at the time. We
were walking in Hagley
Park, across the soccer
pitches, close to the Civic Creche, when [he] froze on the spot and began to
shake. “Is that Peter?” he asked me. The only person in sight was about 100
metres away, with a mop of black hair and wearing a checked Swandri type
shirt, similar to the one that Peter Ellis, and hundreds of other Kiwis,
wore. “No,” I replied, “Peter is away for a wee while, you’ll be OK.”
What brought us to this? For about a year our son attended the Civic Creche
on Mondays and Thursdays most weeks, until he went to primary school. Twice
in that year he came home with an extremely sore, raw anal area. He screamed
and yelled in pain when we applied cream to that area.
He loved the creche at first, but as the year progressed, when we dropped him
off around 830am, he would refuse to let us go until most of the staff
arrived after nine. He began to tell us things that a four-year-old should
not know. He began to act in a sexually inappropriate manner. He began to
attach himself to any male that came into our house. He began to attack me
(his father) quite viciously, around the groin area, without warning. There
were numerous other problem behaviours. This was not our child. It took four
years of careful, thoughtful and at times stressful parenting to get him back
to the child we had known...
As to the topography of the crèche. No doubt the toilets were open to view
after the fact, but when the creche was a functioning unit, there was no
clear space between the supervisor’s door and the toilet. The line of sight
was cluttered with sofas, bookcases, chairs and so on.
I am not pontificating on Ellis’s guilt or innocence; three courts have done
that work for me. However, I feel that the voices of those whose children
were actually involved have not been heard in the years after the trial.
I listen to the views of Mr Macskasy (Letters to the Editor, July) and others
of his ilk, and think, that’s fine in theory, but you were not there! This
chap is only giving his opinion, as he is entitled to do, but I know what
happened. Justice has been served.
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