Timaru Herald
June 23 2003
Judge backing creche petition
A
retired High Court judge is among the latest public figures to back a petition
calling for a royal commission into the Christchurch Civic Creche child abuse
case.
National Party MPs Katherine Rich and Don Brash will present the petition to
Parliament tomorrow after a ceremony attended by many of the women creche
workers who lost their jobs or were arrested during the abuse controversy,
where fellow worker Peter Ellis was jailed for 10 years.
Most such ceremonies take place on the steps of Parliament, but Speaker
Jonathan Hunt has given permission for it to be held inside in a select
committee room, officially because the weather might be bad outside.
Former Labour prime ministers David Lange and Mike Moore are among more than
100 public figures who signed the petition, which the Mrs Rich and Dr Brash
started after
Many of the petition signatories are senior members of the legal profession,
but having one from a High Court judge, who was on the bench during the years
of Ellis's trial and unsuccessful appeals, is likely to be significant.
Mrs Rich said yesterday that the name of the former judge would be made public
when the petition is presented tomorrow.
Ellis, who was paroled in 2000 after always protesting his innocence, said he
would not attend. He had never met Mrs Rich or Dr Brash and did not want anyone
to think he was behind their petition. He was very pleased that his former
co-workers would be at Parliament and hoped justice would eventually win.
In possibly the most controversial case since the 1970 murder conviction of
Arthur Allan Thomas, Ellis was convicted in 1993 of 16 charges of abusing
pre-schoolers at the Civic.
The Court of Appeal twice turned down appeals by Ellis. A 2001 report for
Justice Minister Phil Goff by former chief justice Sir Thomas Eichelbaum said
Ellis had failed "by a distinct margin" to prove his innocence.
Mrs Rich said the petition would be hard to ignore because of the standing of
the legal, political and other public figures who had signed it.
"This is not about Peter Ellis, it is about the integrity of the justice
system," she said.