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Probably
no case involving allegations of sex crimes against young children has caused
so much public indignation in this country as that involving Peter Ellis,
writes the Otago Daily Times in an editorial. The
sexual abuse of children strikes at the very heart of our community, for it
imperils the safety of the family, the unit on which the community is built.
The paedophile is the wolf in the fold; his crimes invariably involve
degradation, secrecy, the shame felt by his victims, and the panic felt by
all parents. Ellis
was found guilty by a jury of sexually abusing children at the Christchurch
Civic Childcare Centre between 1986 and 1992, and sentenced to a 10-year jail
term. The 1993 guilty verdicts were on 16 out of 25 charges of abusing
children in his care, charges which Ellis has always denied. The
key criticisms by Ellis of the police case claim that children were
questioned using now discredited techniques, which could have led to
fabricated allegations; the questioning produced many bizarre allegations,
which showed the children could not be relied on; he would have had great
difficulty in committing the offences without being detected because of the crèche
layout and the number of people passing through; there was a lack of any
unsolicited complaint from children at the creche about him; the sharing of
information and rumour among creche parents - some of whom were counsellors
in abuse cases - after a psychologically disturbed parent made the first
allegation late in 1991 had detrimentally affected consideration of the
claims; the police had been selective in their use of complainants; and that
two of the jurors either knew the mother of one of the child complainants or
knew the Crown prosecutor in the case, which may have affected the premise of
an objective and detached jury. The
Court of Appeal has considered his case twice, in total by seven different
judges, and it has declined to overturn the jury's verdict, although in 1994
it dismissed three of the charges on evidence that the complainant concerned
had recanted. Ellis
subsequently sought a pardon from the Governor-general and as part ofthat
process, the Government asked a former Chief Justice, Sir Thomas Eichelbaum,
to study the case and make any recommendations. Sir Thomas, a judge of vast
experience, reported this week that "the case advanced on behalf of Mr
Ellis fails . . to satisfy the inquiry that the convictions were unsafe, or
that a particular conviction was unsafe. It fails by a distinct margin; I
have not found this anything like a borderline judgement". The pardon
appeal accordingly could not succeed. Some
criticism has been made on behalf of Ellis that the terms of reference of Sir
Thomas's investigation were too narrow, but this does not really stand much
scrutiny. The principal focus of the terms was on the credibility of the
evidence of the children, and the means by which they were interviewed to
obtain their evidence. All
the evidence given at both the depositions and the trial was re-examined;
Ellis was, among others, invited to make submissions; and Sir Thomas was
required to seek and evaluate the opinions of two internationally recognised
experts on child abuse and the reliability of witness testimony. One
of these experts made the telling comment that "research on young
children in abuse cases suggests that. . . bizarre material can crop up in
their evidence alongside telling and accurate testimony: the presence of
bizarre elements is not in itself proof that the whole of the child's
testimony is tainted". And
while the experts had some criticisms to make, particularly with respect to
the physical layout of the crèche, and corroborative evidence, they did not
significantly change the weight of evidence against Ellis. The
greatest tragedy in this case is that the very young children who were the
victims remain victims. Since the conviction of Ellis, the focus of public
attention has been wholly on a campaign to clear his name, although the case
against Ellis must now be considered incontrovertible. For the child victims,
that campaign means their testimony, accepted by the jury and the appeal
court judges, is nevertheless discredited; yet should Ellis, by some
remarkable reversal of all the evidence mounted against him be proven
innocent - beyond reasonable doubt - then those same children, now 10 years
older, must then be convinced that none of it ever happened. |
