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The
Christchurch Civic Creche Case |
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* Japanese tourists used
a secret tunnel from the nearby Park Royal Hotel to go to the Christchurch
creche and abuse tiny children there, (Investigating police searched sewers
and, not surprisingly, failed to find the mysterious entrance.) * Christ attended a
wedding the children described. * Japanese tourists
(again) this time dressed as cowboys, sat around playing guitars at a house
where children were forced to dance naked. Creche staff stood around them in a circle and Peter Ellis'
mother took photographs. (Abuse
charges against other women staff were withdrawn before trial.) * Children at the creche
were hung in cages from the rafters while a (non-existent) child called
Andrew was sacrificed below them. * Children were taken
into the roof and the eaves to be abused and then climbed down rope ladders
to the kitchen. (Police searched the
roof area looking for evidence and found none - but one did put his foot
through the ceiling in the process.) Unbelievable? Well, key
child witnesses who claimed Peter Ellis abused them also described these
happenings as part of the process. Phil Goff [our Minister of Justice] is right. The serious risk of another major
miscarriage of justice must be cleared up. An inquiry must examine why jurors did not hear these
significant fictions from key child witnesses. But the new Minister of Justice will have real problems moving
his department and the whole justice system to take action. Having withheld vital evidence from the jury, they have
consistently failed to accept the significance of their actions for the whole
eight years of the strange and worrying affair. The Ellis trial was a terrible example of the adversary system
in action. The whole basis of jury trial is the credibility of witnesses –
in this case a group of children. The Crown depended on that credibility in their testimony
against the man the children - and their convinced parents - said had abused
them. The jury was misled about that credibility because the Crown and
the trial judge deliberately withheld significant statements the children had
also made. Bizarre and unbelievable claims like the ones above which
prosecutors new would be rejected by the jury. Instead, jurors heard and obviously accepted the children's carefully
edited responses to specialist abuse investigators' questions. But they did not hear the totally fictional an censored sections
which could/would have put the whole testimony in serious doubt. One child told interviewers he had been abused - by an
uncle. He was adamant about that. It took interviewers three more question sessions before he
accepted their version that his abuser was not his uncle but Ellis. Evidence like this was withheld from the jury either as a
tactical decision by prosecutors or at the direction of the judge. He consistently stopped the defence introducing tapes of these
significant interviews. He ruled, for
instance, that since the uncle was not charged but Ellis was, the other
evidence was inadmissible. One girl later said her evidence of abuse by Ellis had been
false. Convictions based on it were
quashed. But others were sustained. One nationally quoted law lecturer [Wendy Ball from Waikato
University] says a royal commission would be a waste of time - "two court
of Appeal hearing have found there was no miscarriage of justice - justice
has been done." She, like at least one Auckland University commentator [Dr
"John Read"] conveniently forget the lessons of the Thomas case. The guilt or innocence of Peter Ellis is one issue. So is the credibility of the justice
system. Of course the community has the greatest sympathy for the
children and parents, recognising the impact the various ordeals involved
have had on their lives. They are victims in this sad affair. But, the key question is whether they are victims of the
judicial system rather than of Peter Ellis.
And whether he is a victim too. |
