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Hamilton City Libraries
BOOK INFORMATION
(From numbers of reservations placed on these books at Hamilton City Libraries)
TOP 10 TITLES FOR DECEMBER 2001


5. A City Possessed: the Christchurch Civic Creche case
by Lynley Hood.

A City Possessed is an unusual book in the miscarriage of justice literature and the Peter Ellis case is an unusual case. The case is unusual because most miscarriage of justice cases are about whether the accused committed the offences, or someone else. In this case the question is whether the offences took place at all.

The book is unusual because it takes in far more than just the story of the case. In particular Lynley Hood gives us an intelligent and astute criticism of changes made in 1989 to the rules of evidence for child sexual abuse cases and also of the limits, imposed by Parliament or by the court itself, to the Court of Appeal's powers to review cases properly on appeal.

This book has already received plenty of publicity and the question has been asked "how can Lynley Hood be right and a High Court judge and jury, three reviews and two Court of Appeal decisions be wrong?".