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Otago Daily Times
April 27 2002
Peter Ellis
Letter to the
Editor [Abridged. - Ed.]
by J K Gallagher, Waikouaiti
A
City
Possessed can upset only
those who haven't read it. Attention, Phil Goff. Lynley Hood explains, very
clearly, a phenomenon that occurred and the reasons that ancient malaise,
mass-hysteria, took Christchurch
over because (as Hood's extraordinary amount of research reveals) the time
was right. The social factors involved made it inevitable. No one in Christchurch was
necessarily immune.
Well then, Christchurch
was in the grip of a mass-hysteria about child abuse and we have an
interesting legal problem. Why should the jurors in the trial of Peter Ellis
have been exempt? Whether Peter Ellis did any of the acts he was charged with
becomes almost irrelevant. He was simply a victim of a circumstantial
accident, and in the same position as if he had been hit by a tornado or
engulfed by a tidal wave.
Phil Goff need not worry that his department will be clobbered by a claim for
compensation; the wall of silence erected by state broadcasting between
Lynley Hood and the public can come down (Hood's letter to the Listener December 21); and sweetness
and light can return. That is, for everyone except Peter Ellis. On the other
hand, as the victim of a natural disaster he must qualify for a claim under
the Earthquake and War Damage Act. Now there's a case to argue.
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