The Dominion Post
August 4 2003

Ellis supporter to set up website
by Bess Manson

The crusader determined to vindicate convicted child molester Peter Ellis is to launch a website with the transcript of tapes of every child who gave evidence in Ellis' 1992 trial.

This latest move by publisher Barry Colman follows a two-page $25,000 advertisement he took out in the Sunday Star Times yesterday which featured excerpts from some children's taped transcripts never heard by the jury in Ellis' trial.

The transcripts showed some children had been interviewed up to six times. Mr Colman believes the jury only heard interviews that suited the prosecution. "As a former journalist I think what I have shown is a pretty good representative case but there is still some suspicion among some critics that . . . we are providing selective evidence, so to make the whole thing transparent I am going to have a website built that will feed 100 per cent of the transcripts on it."

The website would be set up within a week, he said.

Mr Colman has received dozens of calls in response to his advertisement which included statements not heard by the jury from children speaking of trapdoors, beatings from Ellis' mother, tales of being caged and hung from the ceiling and men dressed in black clothes with black hats "hurting kids".

None of the public's responses had been negative, he said.

"They have all been very supportive. People have phoned asking what they can do to help, some of them volunteering to go to Wellington and screw (Justice Minister) Phil Goff's neck. I told them I admired their enthusiasm but didn't think that would help much."

Child Youth and Family and Children's Commissioner Roger McClay had tried to stop Mr Colman publishing the transcripts.

Mr McClay said Mr Colman should have sent any new evidence to Mr Goff and saved himself some money placing the advert. He reiterated his fear that Mr Colman's actions would make parents reluctant to let their children give evidence.

But Mr Colman said he was more concerned about the rights of children in the future. "I think it's fairly apparent from those transcripts that those children were becoming traumatised by the manner in which they were being questioned. On the website I think you'll see more of that and there will be even more graphic descriptions of the type of trauma these toddlers were put through."

Mr Colman said a second petition to Parliament asking the Government for a royal commission of inquiry into the case was being prepared by the petitions committee, which included Don Brash, Lynley Hood and Katherine Rich. Mr Colman, who was inspired to fight Ellis' cause after reading Hood's book A City Possessed, offered a $100,000 reward for new evidence which resulted in him getting the transcripts. The reward has not been claimed.