National Business Review
August 4 2003

"Toddler Testimonies" dominates talkback

Discussion about verbatim transcripts of interviews with several of the children at the centre of the Peter Ellis case has dominated the talk back airwaves since being published in the Sunday Star Times.

The transcripts were published after the Crown Law Office said bids by Child, Youth and Family (CYF) to block them would probably not succeed in court.

The transcripts appeared as a two page advertising spread underwritten by publisher Barry Colman.

Mr Colman has pointed out that the transcripts contain much material that the jury in the case did not see or hear and that once readers understood how the testimony used in the 10-year-old case was developed from the interviews, the public would understand how seriously flawed was the case made by the Crown against Mr Ellis.

Most talk back radio programmes devoted time to the topic beginning on Sunday and the response from listeners who had read the transcripts tended to show strong support for the decision to publish the transcripts and, often, amazement that the jury had not been allowed access to the interview tapes -- since apparently gone missing from Crown custody -- on which the transcripts were based.

Mr Colman was a telephone guest on several of the programmes and said he would make all of the documents available online beginning sometime this week. He said he was taking that step in response to claims by some that he had selected transcripts that put the Crown prosecution into the worst possible light.

According to the Dominion Post, Mr Colman, who has never met Ellis or any of the children, said on the eve of their publication that the interviews would show Ellis was an innocent victim of a hysterical witch hunt. Mr Colman said he belongs to a large and growing group that wants the government to establish a commission of inquiry to open the case and take factors such as the transcripts into account.

"You can see (from the transcripts) how these children became more and more refined, from having no complaint against Ellis whatsoever to be talking in fantasy terms," he said.

"The public will see how much gibberish these toddlers of three or four trying to remember things. It's crazy stuff. They talk of trapdoors in the houses that don't exist, of being pulled up in cages by Peter's mother."

One of the children, identified as "B", indicated during an initial interview that all he could recall was being changed by Mr Ellis, a routine practice. After a series of leading interviews, however, he came up with stories that included claims that he and other youngsters were hanged in cages from a ceiling by Ellis' mother.

The transcripts would show that some children were interviewed up to six times, and they would show that the jury heard interviews that suited the prosecution, Mr Colman said.

Justice Minister Phil Goff says, however, that there is nothing new in the transcripts and that videotapes of the interviews on which they are based were made available to the Ellis defence for cross examination purposes while the case was at trial.

He said he has legal advice that nothing in the transcripts warrants establishing the special commission that Mr Colman and others have been pushing for.

Mr Colman told reporters that there had been strong support for his decision to publish, despite objections from Commissioner for Children Roger McClay and CYF.

"I've had more than a dozen phone calls, and every one of them has been positive about what I have done.

"It's been quite amazing. A lot of people have been congratulatory and said the transcripts were a real eye-opener.

"Generally people have had no idea what went on, so this has been heartening," he said.

Later this month, a petition signed by more than 800 people calling for a Royal Commission of Inquiry will go before a select committee hearing at Parliament.

Among other activities, Barry Colman publishes The National Business Review.