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Revolution
Number 10
August/September 1999
The Ellis case
by Sharon Jones
As we go to press, Peter Ellis' appeal has been presented in court and a
decision is being awaited. Hopefully, the result will be the overturning of
his convictions and his release from prison. Ellis was convicted in June 1993
of child sexual abuse at the Christchurch Civic Creche and has spent six
years behind bars so far. A number off male creche workers were also
originally arrested, but charges against them were not proceeded with.
In 'counselling', children at the Civic Creche came up with tales of being
put in cages hung from the ceiling, of seeing other children being baked in
ovens, of being taken up in windowless aeroplanes, shown Ellis' "black
penis" (Ellis is pakeha)and being subjected to various other abuses.
The stories were all highly reminiscent of the fantastic tales associated
with the great moral panic over child abuse at day-care centres which hit the
USA
in the1980s. Most of these cases subsequently unravelled, perhaps the most
famous being the McMartin case, subsequently filmed as Indictment, starring
James Woods and which screened on TV2 in January. In the meantime a massive
amount of damage was done to the lives of those unjustly accused and
imprisoned.
Behind these panics is the insecurity of the middle class. Although it is
workers who have really borne the brunt of the economic restructuring, middle
class life has also been unsettled. Occupations which were very well-paid and
socially prestigious twenty years ago have been substantially proletarianised.
For instance, what were once middle-class sectors now find themselves either
being made redundant or treated as wage-labourers and being driven down into
the working class.
The sense of social power - of some substantial measure of control over their
own lives and those of others beneath them in the class structure - which
this class used to have, has been substantially eroded. A sense of anxiety
and even being under siege has grown. Middle class suburbs are seen as under
threat too, from encroachments by proletarians and the 'underclass'. Even the
technology which was largely controlled by the middle class is now seen as
threatening - abused by internet porn, violent videos and creche workers.
The increased social fragmentation or atomisation of society, that has
inevitably followed the market reforms has increased anxiety and fear across
the social spectrum. In this situation, many people are ready to believe the
worst-case scenario inany situation, no matter how logically implausible it
may be. Friends, neighbours, work mates, relatives and care-givers are often
seen as a potential source of danger, rather than as trustworthy fellow
members of society. It is these overall trends, rather than any actual plague
of child sexual abuse in creches, which explain the panic son this and
related issues.
In this situation, sensational claims about 'perverts' and 'deviants' are a
standard topic for news coverage, and it is no surprise that the media have
played a sensationalist role in
stoking moral panics. At the same time, the growing numbers of
child-protection workers from the police, social work departments and other
social service professions, have to be justified by finding 'crimes' they can
deal with. They are also required to keep abreast of their fields by
attending special workshops and training sessions, at which the most
outrageous and unbelievable scenarios are put forward as real. It is
important to note too that the police and 'protection workers' who attend
these seminars have real powers. And those powers are not in the interests of
the majority of society. Often, as in the Christchurch case, religious fundamentalism
and victim feminism - both of which reflect middle class fears – have
combined to produce a particularly virulent strain of irrationalism.
One of the most worrying aspects of the growth of moral panics in recent
times is the way in which the law has been changed to deny fundamental and
long established rights of defendants. For instance, the 1985 amendment to
the Evidence Act 1908 23AB(1)), states that "for….offences against the
person of asexual nature, no corroboration of the complainant's evidence
shall be necessary for that person to be convicted." Moreover, section
23H(1) of the same Act states, "The Judge shall not instruct the jury on
the need to scrutinise the evidence of young children with special care and
not suggest to the jury that young children generally have tendencies to
invention or distortion." In other words, it was unnecessary to prove
beyond reasonable doubt that child sexual abuse had taken place in order to
convict Peter Ellis.
There are two problems with such legislation.
First, it suggests that children are unable to lie or make things up, unlike
adults apparently. Second, while the child might not be lying when they say
that they believe in Santa Claus, this does not mean that Santa Claus exists.
In fact there is a pernicious double standard at work here.
While children's testimony is to be taken as seriously as that of adults,
they are not to be subject to the same scrutiny as adults or virtually any
scrutiny at all. It also has become the case that sexual abuse is presumed to
have taken place even if the child says that it has not. So if a child tells
a story in which abuse is suggested, it has to be believed; if a child tells
a story in which no abuse is suggested, the child is not to be believed, but
to be seen as being 'in denial'. This is a 'heads I win, tails you lose'
situation.
We may never know the full story ofwhat happened in the Christchurch Civic
Childcare Centre case. The difficulties in assessing the truth of events told
from a child's perspective, the contaminated evidence and the lack of any
medical or other corroborating evidence, however certainly suggest that Peter
Ellis was far from guilty beyond reasonable doubt. The way that the plague of
child-care centre abuse allegations hit the United
States and subsequently unravelled, revealing that most
were moral panics, also suggests a sceptical approach is necessary in
relation to the Christchurch
case.
The verdict on Ellis should be overturned and he himself should be released
and compensated for his unwarranted imprisonment. Legislation such as the
amendment to the Evidence Act should be repealed. Clear thinking and
rationalism need to be brought back to the fore, and we need to be on guard
against future moral panics.
Anyone interested in further background on the Ellis case should read Bruce
Ansley's article in the NZ Listener, April 3-9, 1999.
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