Otago Daily Times
July 24 2003

Colman will expose Peter Ellis evidence
Testimony not put before jury
by Jane Smith

Barry Colman plans to publicly expose children's evidence from the Christchurch Civic Creche sex abuse case.

The evidence was never heard by the jury and proved the case should have been "laughed out of court", the National Business Review publisher said yesterday.

Following the publicity surrounding his pledge of $100,000 for new evidence leading to a royal commission of inquiry into the Peter Ellis case, Mr Colman had been given transcripts of original interviews with the Christchurch children involved.

"The children's testimony will expose how pathetic, flimsy and one-sided the evidence against Ellis was and how the information was obtained by those questioning the children. The public will be able to judge for the first time for themselves the quality of the testimony," he said.

The interviews will be published over two full pages in the Sunday Star-Times on August 3.

Evidence the jury heard would be included in block indents, so the public could see both the evidence that was shown and the evidence that was not.

"It would have been impossible to convict [Ellis] if the jury had seen the whole of the video testimony. They would have laughed it out of court, in our opinion," Mr Colman said.

A jury convicted Ellis of child abuse in 1993, and he served six and a-half years of a 10-year sentence, always maintaining his innocence.

Although the children's names had been suppressed by the court, the transcripts had not been and so could be published.

Mr Colman would not say who provided him with the transcripts.

The deadline for the $100,000 reward expired at midnight last night and, while it had provoked calls from people involved in the case who were "uneasy" about the conviction, none of their information would be sufficient by itself to satisfy the court, he said.