The Press
March 21 2001

Witch-hunt trapped Ellis - author
by Martin Van Beynen

The author of a long-awaited book on the Christchurch Civic Childcare Centre case has concluded that convicted child abuser Peter Ellis was the victim of a witch-hunt.

Writing in Touchy Subject -- Teachers Touching Children, a collection of articles on the shift in the relationship between teachers and young children, author Lynley Hood said she had found no evidence of illegality by anyone accused in the case.

After years of "dredging through the mire" she had instead found convincing evidence that "more than 100 children had been subject to unpleasant and psychologically hazardous procedures for no good reason, and that a group of capable and caring adults with no inclinations towards sexual conduct with children had had their lives ruined as a result".

Ultimately, the question of how the police, the child-protection services, and the justice system had got it wrong had escalated her investigation into an intensive study of the last 30 years of New Zealand's social history, she said.

The study had revealed a convergence of feminism, religious conservatism, and the child- protection movement under the banner of combating child abuse.

With New Zealand initiatives in the field of child sexual abuse driven by this loose coalition, child sexual abuse became, like witchcraft in the 16th and 17th centuries, "a crime distinct from all others", she said.

Special investigative techniques and special investigators had to be devised and special laws passed.

Law changes that "swept away the rights of suspects to a fair trial" and the near-universal acceptance that the coerced evidence of child sexual abuse was reliable made the "late 20th century sexual abuse panic", possible.

"In New Zealand in 1993, these factors also made the conviction of Peter Ellis possible," she said.

Ms Hood, whose previous book credits include Sylvia and Minnie Dean -- Her Life and Crimes, has been writing her book on the creche case, A City Possessed, for the last seven years. It is due to be released this year.

The results of a ministerial inquiry into the case, conducted by former Chief Justice Sir Thomas Eichelbaum, which were released by the Government last week, found the convictions against Ellis were safe.

The Court of Appeal has twice rejected Ellis' contentions that the complainant children's evidence was unreliable. Ellis served 6<> years of a 10-year jail sentence imposed for 13 convictions of abusing children in his care.