|
Otago Daily Times
Thursday, 2-March 2000
Commissioner's call `premature'
NZPA Staff Correspondent
Wellington: Justice Minister Phil Goff yesterday dismissed a call for
a child advocate in the Peter Ellis inquiry as premature.
Mr Goff said there was no decision yet on whether to conduct an inquiry into
Ellis' conviction for child abuse or, if there was one, what form it would
take.
Mr Goff is awaiting advice from officials on whether an inquiry into the
Ellis case should be a royal commission or a scaled down ministerial inquiry.
Children's Commissioner Roger McClay said yesterday Ellis' victims had the
right to be heard and the Government should appoint someone to speak on their
behalf if an inquiry was launched.
"It is of grave concern to me that over the past six-and-a-half years
since Ellis' conviction for sexually abusing children, public attention has
been focused almost exclusively on the campaign to clear Ellis' name,"
Mr McClay told a Wellington Rotary club.
"In the midst of all this, the evidence of the child victims and their
families has been largely ignored. The media and the public seem ready to
discredit the evidence of these seven children and the many others who have
since spoken out about their abuse at the hands of this man."
Mr McClay plans to raise his concerns at a meeting with Mr Goff on Monday,
after a meeting with the parents of children from the Christchurch Civic
Creche case.
However, Mr Goff said the commissioner should have waited until they had met
before speaking out.
"The fact is it's not sensible to advocate a child advocate to any
inquiry until we know whether there is an inquiry and what nature it will
take.
"I think his comment was premature from that perspective."
Mr Goff also disputed the commissioner's "presumption" that he had
not taken any account of the views of the families of the children involved
in the creche case.
"I met last Friday with three of the families, giving them an equal
amount of time that I gave to Mr Ellis' advocate and lawyer Judith Ablett
Kerr." - NZPA
|
