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The Otago Daily Times
July 23, 2002
Ellis and other former crèche workers
questioned by police
Author
suspicious of harassment
NZPA
Christchurch:
Award-winning author Lynley Hood says she is suspicious of police
"harassing and intimidating" former Christchurch Civic Crèche
worker Peter Ellis.
Ellis said police knocked on his door last Wednesday night regarding an
historic abuse allegation. He said yesterday he felt harassed and
intimidated.
Ellis, who has always protested his innocence, was paroled from prison in
February 2000 after serving six and a-half years of a 10-year sentence on
charges of abusing seven children in his care at the crèche.
A book about the crèche case - A City Possessed - won the Montana New Zealand
Book Award's top prize in Auckland
on Saturday night.
Speaking from Auckland
yesterday, Hood said she was "absolutely suspicious" of the latest
police inquiry into Ellis.
"This is the same thing as what happened on the eve of the publication
of the book. There was a supposed new allegation. The same story keeps
getting recycled.
"There needs to be a commission of inquiry," Hood said.
"We have a slow-burning fuse here and it is getting shorter and
brighter. The Government can't ignore this book."
Hood said the police visit was "par for the course" and their
actions showed their "huge power".
She spoke to Ellis on the phone after police had gone to see him.
Police would not comment on the case yesterday.
Hood said legal authorities "up and down the country" concurred with
her view that Ellis should not have been jailed .
"It's not just the crèche. I am deeply concerned about false allegations
of sex abuse . . . ripping at the fabric of society.
"The system can't distinguish reliably between true and false
allegations," she said.
Ellis said he wanted Prime Minister Helen Clark and Justice Minister Phil
Goff to read the book, rather than rely on Crown Law Office advice on whether
to review the case.
Former crèche supervisor Gaye Davidson has been asked to contact police.
Business cards from two Christchurch
detectives were left at her front door last week.
Ms Davidson and three other female co-workers - Marie Keys, Jan Buckingham,
and Debbie Gillespie - had indecent assault and sexual violation charges
dismissed in 1992-93.
Ms Davidson said an inquiry would take away any lingering doubts over the
creche workers' role.
She was one of 13 civic crèche workers awarded $1 million in total
compensation by the Employment Court in 1995 for unjustified dismissal,
following the civic creche case child abuse allegations in 1992.
Most of the money was stripped from them by the Court of Appeal the following
year.
Ellis was found guilty of sexually abusing children at the crèche between
1986 and 1992, and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. The case has been to
the Court of Appeal twice.
Ellis said yesterday Hood's book had helped him, despite the increased public
and media attention.
"People are reading it, they are writing to Lynley congratulating her on
it and they are writing to Mr Goff to get him to do something about it,"
Ellis said. -
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