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The
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Parents
have their $50,000 lump sum handouts, enthusiastically touted by ACC shock
troops in return for weaving an evil web of fanciful accusations against
Ellis in their sitting-room conferences. Police,
social workers and other self-styled experts have the satisfaction of
cobbling together a successful prosecution out of an outrageous collection of
black fairy tales. The
astonishing narrowness of Gull's instructions to Sir Thomas Eichelbaum are to
blame for focusing the retired chief justice on only one point: whether the
interviewing techniques were dubious enough to discredit the convictions.
Ellis, instead of facing a prosecution required to prove his guilt, was
called on to prove his innocence with both hands fled behind his back.
Eichelbaum lacked instructions to consider a fatal flaw in the prosecution:
the offences physically could never have happened, no matter what rubbish the
children were cajoled into reporting. The
offences were impossible because the open plan toilet area was constantly
under surveillance by the unpredictable passing traffic of adults - creche
workers, visitors and parents. This is the key to the whole thing. I am
better informed than most of the people parading their opinions on the Ellis
case because I inspected the toilet area. Take
my word for it; none of the disgusting things Ellis was accused of doing
could have happened there. Never mind worrying about who did or didn't do
them: they were never done at all, by anyone. As
for I
talked to Ellis after he heard his pardon had been refused. "People
are very good, you know," he said. "When the news came out, a woman
stopped me in the street in Ellis
welcomed the way Goff had been forced on to the defensive in trying to
downplay the toilet area observation by Davies. "Is
not only the layout of the toilets an inquiry should consider," Ellis
said. "The toilets are in full view of the main play area and the staff
room is directly opposite. People
used to go in and cut through that staff room door all the time, so nothing
could have happened. The toilet area continued for years afterward to be set
out that way, and to the best of my knowledge still is, If it could be a
danger, they would alter it, the way road engineers fix a bend where
accidents happen." Ellis
lives quietly with his mother, doing the gardening and housework and looking
after 14 birds in his aviary. He's no longer under any prison-release
restrictions. "I
can go where I like, and work anywhere I like. Though, when I apply for jobs,
I am aware employers who might take me on stop and think, "Hey, I'll
have to explain this to my staff." Ellis
said the public should be concerned the government plans to reintroduce the
ACC lump sum payments for sex abuse allegations that were offered to parents
making claims against him. "People thinking of making claims will rely
on the Eichelbaum decision - and
that's taxpayers' money." We
certainly haven't. The day the Eichelbaum decision was announced, the ACC
reported 80% of the 47,000 people given $100 million in the past nine years
as sex abuse compensation were adults claiming they remembered being abused
as children. |
