http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2596111a11,00.html

Stuff
August 4 2003

Testimonies do not justify another inquiry - Goff
NZPA

Justice Minister Phil Goff says he has legal advice that previously unpublished testimonies of children in the Peter Ellis paedophile case do not justify another inquiry.

Millionaire publisher Barry Colman paid more than $20,000 for an advertisement in the Sunday Star-Times newspaper yesterday containing transcripts of testimonies, some of which were not played to the jury which convicted Ellis in 1993 of molesting children in his care.

He says he will put entire interview transcripts from the case, which led to seven years in jail for the former Christchurch Civil Creche worker, on to a website this week so the public can "make up its own mind."

But Mr Goff said last night that the Crown Law Office assured him all tapes and transcripts were made available to defence lawyers for cross-examination purposes before the jury convicted Ellis.

He said he sought an opinion from Crown Law after receiving late last week an advance copy of the advertisement, and was told it contained no new evidence.

The two-page spread, which asks whether Ellis is a child molester or victim of a witch-hunt, includes transcripts of some interviews by Child, Youth and Family staff which were not played to the jury.

These include a claim in October, 1992, by a six-year-old boy referred to as B that he and other youngsters were hanged in cages from a ceiling by Ellis' mother.

That was the boy's fifth interview and was in stark contrast to Child Youth and Family's first interview with him, five months earlier, in which the advertisement said that "all B could come up with was a memory of Ellis cleaning him up on the creche changing table."

Excerpts from that interview were played to the jury.

Mr Goff said that although the trial judge ruled against playing transcripts of claims which did not lead to charges against Ellis, the jury was well aware "that some of the material was bizarre and fanciful."

But he said an international expert, recognised as such even by pro-Ellis author Lynley Hood, had assured former chief justice Sir Thomas Eichelbaum in his ministerial review of the case that the presence of "bizarre elements" was not in itself proof that all of a child's evidence was tainted.

Sir Thomas supported findings of two Court of Appeal panels in concluding that Ellis' supporters fell well short of demonstrating that his convictions were unsafe.

Mr Goff said he would be happy to refer any genuinely new evidence back to the appeal judges but it was not for a minister nor newspaper publishers to determine whether people were innocent or guilty.

Mr Colman said he had widespread public support for his advertisement.

"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."

Commissioner for Children Roger McClay and CYF criticised Mr Colman's decision, and tried to stop publication of the transcripts.

Mr Colman said the next stage of the fight to clear Ellis' name would happen this month, when a petition signed by more than 800 people calling for a Royal Commission of Inquiry will go before a select committee hearing at Parliament.