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The
Christchurch Civic Creche Case |
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Wellington - Justice Minister Phil Goff has dismissed a call for
a child advocate in the Peter Ellis inquiry as premature. Mr Goff said yesterday that 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
should be a Royal Commission or a scaled-down ministerial inquiry. Children's Commissioner Roger McClay said yesterday that 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 6 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. Mr Goff said the commissioner should have waited until they had
met before speaking out, however. "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. I certainly haven't ignored the views of one whole side,
listening only to the views of the other." Mr McClay raised questions over the focus of the inquiry,
suggesting it would not be appropriate to relitigate the case. To do so in the face of Ellis' conviction by a judge and jury
would suggest there were "huge problems" with the justice system,
he said. "Is our justice system really so woefully hopeless, or
worse still corrupt, as to allow such a miscarriage of justice? "Or do people just have trouble believing the word of
children." Mr Goff said the justice system was not infallible. "From
time to time it gets things wrong. That's why we have appeal procedures
within the law and from time to time issues arise that cannot properly be
dealt with by a court of law." Mr Goff said it would have been irresponsible for the Government
to ignore a statement by the Court of Appeal after rejecting an appeal by
Ellis against his conviction, that there were issues which fell outside its
scope and which could only be examined by a commission of inquiry. They related predominately to the acquisition of evidence from
children and whether the processes of that acquisition were safe, given new
evidence from other parts of the world. Mr Goff said such matters also needed to be examined before a
recommendation could be made to the Governor-General on a petition from Mrs
Ablett-Kerr seeking a pardon for Ellis. "Answers to some of the questions that have been raised in
that area need to be sought." Ellis was freed from jail last month after being convicted in
1993 on 16 charges of sexually abusing seven children in his care at the
Christchurch Civic Childcare Centre. He has always protested his innocence and doubts have emerged
about the way allegations against him arose, the way young children were
interviewed, and the impartiality of his trial jury. |
