The Christchurch Civic Creche Case
	News Reports
	1999
	Waikato Times October 20 1999 Memory expert calls for second trial for Ellis NZPA A memory expert has called for a new trial for convicted child abuser Peter Ellis based on "science instead of rhetoric". Ellis was convicted in 1993 and jailed for 10 years on 16 counts of sexual offences against young children at the Christchurch Civic Childcare Centre. However, Ellis has maintained his innocence, twice turning down parole opportunities as well as refusing home leave to protest the legitimacy of the convictions. The Court of Appeal last week dismissed Ellis' second appeal. But Victoria University psychology lecturer and memory specialist Maryanne Garry said Ellis should be allowed another trial. He was convicted on the evidence of children and research into children's memory had grown by leaps and bounds since Ellis was convicted, she said. "The jury should have been properly educated when Ellis was originally tried by allowing psychologists to discuss the research on children's memory -- something that didn't happen during the trial." She rejected suggestions by an expert crown witness who said children were resistant to misleading suggestions of abuse. Research showed that adults could come to remember entire events that never happened to them and often these events were highly unpleasant. "Why do we think that children are somehow resistant to memory distortions to which adults are not resistant." Research since Ellis was convicted had shown children could be wildly inaccurate about parts of events or even about entire events. There didn't even have to be a lot of suggestion involved, she said. Simply asking children repeated yes or no questions could cause them to create false stories they could come to believe and the stories were often incredibly coherent and filled with rich perceptual detail. Dr Garry also rejected suggestions that the Christchurch children's behaviour was consistent with true allegations of child abuse. Research showed that there was no consistent cluster symptom that reliably classified child abuse, she said. "The idea there is some child sexual abuse syndrome is just nonsense, wholly disproved by scientific research," she said.