http://onenews.nzoom.com/onenews_detail/0,1227,210601-1-7,00.html
One News
August 4, 2003
Little hope over Ellis transcripts
ONE News sourced from TVNZ, RNZ, Reuters and AAP
The
publishing of transcripts from evidence gathered in the Peter Ellis
Christchurch Civic Creche case looks unlikely to have any impact on the bid to
clear his name.
Excerpts of evidence that the jury in his trial did not get to hear were
published in a newspaper on Sunday.
The advertisement was paid for by
Ellis was convicted in 1993 of abusing children at the Christchurch Civic
Creche and served six and a half years of a 10 year prison sentence.
He always denied the charges.
The two page spread of interview transcripts is headed with a question asking
whether Peter Ellis is a child molester or the victim of a witch hunt.
In some of the interviews, the children described some extreme situations such
as being locked in cages hung from the ceiling.
Peter Ellis's supporters argue that these claims were excluded from his trial
because they were so ludicrous that they would have undermined the rest of the
prosecution case.
Colman says he wanted the transcripts published to as wide an audience as
possible, which he hopes will pressure the Minister of Justice to take another
look at the case.
The children's interviews had been ruled inadmissible in Ellis's court case.
But the convenor of the Law Society's Criminal Law Committee Philip Morgan says
that can't stop the evidence being made public.
Justice Minister Phil Goff says he had the Crown Law office go over the
transcripts again when Barry Colman announced his plans to publish them.
Goff says Crown Law analysed all of the evidence from the children, and what
was presented to the court.
Ellis's mother, Lesley Ellis, says reading through the transcripts in the paper
has reminded her what a frightening time it was when the investigation was
going on, because she knew some of the accusations were against her.
Ellis says she and her son have not been involved in this latest campaign, and
they are concentrating on the formal legal channels with their counsel, Judith Ablett-Kerr.
Goff says the case has already been under scrutiny at a depositions hearing, a
court case, two appeals and a ministerial inquiry.
Barry Colman says a second petition of high profile New Zealanders is being put
together asking parliament to have another look, while Judith Abblet Kerr's petition to the Privy Council is expected to
be lodged in the next month