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A renewed call for convicted child
abuser Peter Ellis to be pardoned will be put to Governor-General Sir Michael
Hardie Boys on Monday, after the Court of Appeal
dismissed yesterday his second appeal. Ellis, spoken to by his counsel
Judith Ablett Kerr after the decision was given in After the decision, Mrs Ablett Kerr announced that
she would renew her appeal to Sir Michael, as well as continue to battle for
a royal commission of inquiry into the case. Ellis's supporters also vowed to
keep fighting. His mother, Lesley, yesterday urged members of the public to
pepper their members of Parliament and Justice Minister Tony Ryall with calls for the inquiry. But none of these can have an
effect on Ellis's sentence. Even though he has consistently refused parole,
he will be freed automatically when two-thirds of his sentence has been
served -- in February next year. Ellis, now 41, was convicted in
1993 and sentenced to 10 years' jail on 16 counts of sexual offences against
children at the Christchurch Civic Childcare Centre. Three counts were quashed a year
later at appeal after one complainant's retraction, but the appeal was otherwise
dismissed and Ellis's conviction and sentence stood. Yesterday's judgment was of a rare
second appeal, made after a direction by Sir Michael. The decision of Justices Gault, Thomas, * That all factors of interviewing
technique contamination raised had been addressed in the lower court's
proceeding and new evidence raised at appeal was insufficient to warrant
overturning its decision. Multiple-allegation situations did
not of themselves mean that the allegations were unreliable. * A retraction by a complainant
during the course of the 1994 appeal did not mean a miscarriage of justice as
it had no material effect on the other verdicts. * Of an appeal that the jury had
been deprived of evidence allowing it to properly assess the complainants'
reliability and credibility, it said defence counsel had been alert to the
relevance of bizarre allegations and it had been open to them to
cross-examine all complainants on all disclosed allegations. While it could be said there was a
degree of "sanitising" by the Crown -- in
that, of 42 initial charges involving 20 complainants only 28 charges
involving 13 children were included in the indictment -- there was no
suppression of possibly relevant evidence. * Of a juror who had a personal
relationship with a person who worked alongside the mother of a complainant,
the court ruled there was nothing to indicate trial issues had been
discussed. Claims that another juror was overheard saying Ellis was guilty
had been denied, and did not raise concern. * Bad faith on the part of the
prosecution in withholding material was "largely academic".
Withheld photographs of the creche showing a happy
environment, and that the door to the toilets where many of the offences were
alleged was commonly open, added nothing to what was made clear at trial. The same could be said of
documents presented as demonstrating risks of contamination through contact
between the officer in charge and the parents and children. The court's judgment is also notable
for addressing whether or not an appeal held at a governor-general's
direction should extend its interest beyond the normal scope of correctness
of questions of law and process. The ruling says that the ultimate
function of the court is "to decide the case on its true merits"
but, in meeting this goal, "established rules and principles" must
be applied. To rule a miscarriage of justice,
without the defence proving anything sufficiently new in the contamination
and allied fields to justify the verdicts being set aside, was beyond the The court was not persuaded that
any individual appeal had been borne out, nor that
their cumulative effect constituted a miscarriage of justice, and the appeal
was therefore dismissed. |
