The Christchurch Civic Creche Case
	News Reports
	2000 Index
	Sunday Star Times March 12 2000 "We've already been through the Ellis case" by Sandra Coney We have heard a lot recently from a judiciously toned-down Peter Ellis. Found guilty through the courts, the Ellis camp is running another trial by media. But while the former process is constrained by rigorous rules of conduct and evidence, the second is unrestrained. And while the first has a prosecution and a defence - and a judge to see people play by the rules - the second is all about making a good story and lifting the ratings. Consequently, the fact that what the public is told is almost totally one-sided, doesn't seem to matter at all. In fact there are not even two "sides" to this story. There is a truth which has been established through the judicial process and tested by cross-examination, and then there is a construction of allegations, half-truths and insinuations. This Ellis "case" has been repeated over and over again through the media, so it has accumulated a kind of fake veracity. Everything in the Ellis "case" has been repeatedly tested by the courts. Four courts have examined Ellis' claims : the deposition hearing in 1992, the court case itself in 1993, an Appeal Court hearing in 1994, and a second Appeal Court hearing, with the full bench of five Appeal Court judges, in 1999. I want to draw attention to this final Court of Appeal hearing. There is a 48-page judgement and I wish all those apologists for Peter Ellis would read it. With relentless logic it scrutinises Ellis' lawyers' claims and finds them wanting. The Court of Appeal said there was no fresh evidence on which to overturn the previous verdicts. Everything put before it by Ellis' lawyers had already been extensively considered at earlier hearings. For example, criticisms have been made of the children's evidence and the methods used by counsellors. Ellis' lawyers say the methods used would have "contaminated" the children's accounts. But the Court of Appeal said those criticisms were known and were taken into account by the jury. Furthermore, the judges were concerned Ellis lawyers showed the overseas defence experts they produced at appeal only a selection of the trial material. They did not show them the cross-examination of the children, the parents' evidence, or the cross-examinations of the psychologists who conducted the interviews. Unlike the jury, the experts were not shown all the evidence. The Ellis campaign contends because some of the evidence given by the children was bizarre, all their evidence is suspect. Furthermore, as not all the nasty practices were presented by the prosecution, the jury may have been misled. In other words, had the jury known how nutty some of the things the kids said were, they would have disbelieved everything. Of course, their inexperience means pre-school children do not have a language for talking about sexual practices. It would not be surprising if they described them in strange ways. But the judges pointed out all this material was available to the defence at the trials - nothing was suppressed - the defence played videotapes of children's interview other than those used by the prosecution. No defence request was denied by the trial judge. On the other hand, evidence was presented by the prosecution Ellis spoke to other crèche workers about bizarre sexual practices he enjoyed, such as urinating over a partner (which he called a "golden shower") which were similar to some of the bizarre practices the children were subjected to. Ellis denied some of these conversation, and those he admitted to he said he invented to shock his co-workers. This sounds like having a bob each way: I couldn't have done these things, but if I said I did, I made them up. The final conclusion of the Appeal Court judges is that everything Ellis' lawyers produced had been looked at before. The various papers that Ellis ' expert witnesses produced, regarding child sex abuse in general, were of little use to the Court of Appeal as they were opinions rather than evidence. They said the proper forum for this would be some form of inquiry, but they stopped short of recommending one. The Ellis camp has latched on to this. On Friday [Mar 9] a heavily lobbied Minister of Justice Phil Goff announced a ministerial inquiry. It is hard to see what justification there is for such an inquiry. An inquiry does not have the strict rules of evidence of the court and it will simply prolong the agony for the children, now entering their teens. The judicial system has already bent over backwards to hear Ellis' claims.