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Sunday Star Times
March 19, 2000
Unease over Ellis
by Rod Robson, Wellington
Sandra Coney's column about the Peter Ellis case is a misleading piece of polemic.
She gives the incorrect impression that his guilt has been determined by four
courts. He has been found guilty once - at his trial. The deposition hearing
merely decided whether there was sufficient reason for him to stand trial and
the appeal hearings that followed were largely concerned with trial
procedure.
The Appeal Court
did not reconsider his guilt or innocence, this can only be done at a retrial
or in a more general inquiry such as a Royal Commission. Therefore, concerns
about the public atmosphere surrounding his trial and the verdict reached are
still valid.
Ms Coney is also misleading when she asserts that no defence request was
denied by the trial judge. Several important defence requests were declined.
For example, the judge stopped defence lawyers introducing evidence which
contradicted one child's testimony that Ellis had taken him away from the
creche and done "bad things" to him. The reason given was that this
was not one of the charges against Ellis, even though the key issue was the
credibility of the children.
Public unease about this case is justified.
Sunday Star Times
March 19, 2000
Ellis arguments
by Gordon Waugh, Auckland
For someone with so little genuine knowledge of the Peter Ellis case, Sandra
Coney has a lot to say. Her commentary is ill-informed, emotive and
misleading. It ignores the main issues.
Our judicial process is the heart of our community and we have an inherent
right to examine it when it goes badly awry. Peter Ellis was convicted on the
incomplete, imaginative and uncorroborated testimony of small children, and
the opinions of so-called "experts".
Widespread public and professional concern resulted from suggestions of
satanic ritual abuse, the dropping of charges against his co-workers,
suggestions of process abuse and the withholding of masses of critical
evidence from jury scrutiny. A key child witness recanted her stories.
Where was the physical, medical and forensic evidence of injury, surgery,
murder, mutilated carcasses, cages, tunnels, trapdoors, guns, needles,
exploding children or sexual abuse?
The case was based on hysteria and fantasy. Methods used by those who
excavated "evidence" from child witnesses were unscientific,
unethical and unsafe and so was the conviction. Years later, our concerns
remain, heavily underscored by similar cases overseas. An inquiry, albeit a
very limited one, will be held. We have a right to know.
Sunday Star Times
March 19, 2000
Time to scrap adversarial legal system
by Alan MacGillivray, Hibiscus Coast
I was
delighted to read Sandra Coney's diatribe on the Ellis case (March 12) which
focuses, albeit unconsciously, on the considerably more important issue of
highlighting the fallibility of the British (miscarriage of) justice system
which New Zealand continues to slavishly follow.
I assume she would have similar views on Arthur Allan Thomas and the verdicts
of guilty by two juries and two appeal courts prior to his pardon and
$950,000 compensation for serving nine years in prison for crimes he did not
commit.
There are other examples of the British (miscarriage of) justice and jury
system - Timothy Evans, the Guildford four, the Birmingham five - which for
some extraordinary reason we continue to follow.
In context with these examples, two quotes from Ms Coney's article bear
repeating. "There is a truth which has been established through the
judicial process." This is obviously questionable. And: "The
judicial system has already bent over backwards to hear Ellis' claims" -
obviously without establishing the truth and, unbelievably, we now have a top
New Zealand
lawyer inquiring into the highly probably shortcomings of the case.
I would have less concern if Peter Williams QC had been appointed as he is
well aware of the justice system's imperfections.
When will the message get through to our government and legal profession that
true justice is the quest for truth and not victory as the present old and
outdated adversarial system promotes.
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