“THE SOUTHLAND
TIMES”
Invercargill, New Zealand,
October 1, 2001
Hood’s painful quest for truth
by Rosemarie Smith
Dunedin
researcher and writer Lynley Hood first became interested in Peter Ellis and the
Christchurch Civic Creche case when researching Winton baby farmer Minnie Dean.
ROSEMARIE SMITH has followed the progress of Hood's new book, A City Possessed,
which will be launched in Dunedin today.
When Lynley Hood first told me she was interested in the parallels between
public reaction to Peter Ellis with feeling towards Minnie Dean a hundred years
earlier, I told her people like me needed someone like her to investigate the
case.
Like many, I had been uneasy about the Christchurch Civic Creche case of
1992-1993, with its multiple accusations of extraordinary abuse levelled by
very small children against their caregivers.
What had really disturbed me were the accusations against his female
co-workers, who so very nearly stood trial alongside him.
If this was all fabricated fantasy, then anyone who had ever worked with
children was potentially at risk.
What could have gone so wrong in Christchurch? Some of my friends, including
those well educated in the social sciences, believe in Ellis' guilt, speaking
darkly that the police knew more than was presented in court.
One was prominent in the campaign to increase public awareness of Satanic
ritual abuse.
Her belief in the phenomenon made me suspend my scorn -- especially as I had
plenty of reason to know that the public and private sides of people's lives
can be entirely different.
So I had every expectation Hood would uncover that critical hidden dimension
and find evidence to support the presiding trial judge's conclusions that Ellis
had been justly convicted of appalling crimes.
But Hood's 10-year intensive investigation of every scrap of available material
has not uncovered any convincing evidence of wrong-doing by creche staff but
plenty to question about how the case was initiated and driven.
While not entirely comfortable with some of her analysis of events in terms of
moral panic (scape-goating and psychogenic illness by proxy) the parallels with
medieval witch-hunts and portrayal of feminism off the rails, I found much else
to be deeply disturbing, especially the detailed descriptions of the children's
interviews.
Had none of the people concerned ever worked with children in everyday play
situations -- where was their commonsense? These were bright children who had a
preschool experience with a highly stimulating, colourful, eccentric and loved
teacher who had disappeared suddenly from their lives in an atmosphere of great
tension.
They were repeatedly and intrusively questioned by strangers about misdeeds,
with pointed reference to Ellis.
Why should it be so surprising they eventually came out with incredible
stories? A City Possessed is being launched by Otago University Law dean
Professor Mark Henaghan and it has already attracted heavyweight backing as an
important piece of scholarship.
It covers a great deal more than just the creche case -- this is not a work
like Beyond Reasonable Doubt on Arthur Allan Thomas.
Some of the 600 pages are challenging reading, such as the explanation of the
finer points of evidential law that made the creche case possible, but
essential if the wider public is to take responsibility for what is done in its
name.
We must also understand what and how has happened in public policymaking and
the consequences for the services delivered through agencies of the state such
as the old Social Welfare Department.
The book will undoubtedly cause pain to many of those at the centre of the case
but it is vital that the issues are understood and seriously debated.
If nothing else, Hood seems to have given us all access to a body of evidence
to conduct an informed debate.
For if Peter Ellis was wrongly convicted, and the system cannot self- correct,
none of us is safe before the law.