Otago Daily Times
August 4 2003
More Ellis details to follow advertisement
by Joanna Norris
Businessman and Dunedin hotel owner Barry Colman, who paid more than $20,000 to
publish transcripts relating to the Peter Ellis creche case, plans to publish
more details on a website this week.
Mr Colman placed an advertisement, which ran in the Sunday Star Times yesterday
despite opposition from the Commissioner for Children and Child Youth and
Family, and has vowed to continue his campaign to clear Ellis.
The newspaper reported the cost of the two full-page advertisements was
$20,500.
"We did it so that people could make a judgement for themselves," Mr
Colman told the Otago Daily Times yesterday.
Peter Ellis served six and a-half of a 10-year sentence after he was convicted
in 1993 of child abuse at the Christchurch Civic Creche. He has always
maintained his innocence.
"My motivation has been to say let's get to the bottom of this; let's find
out what really happened," Mr Colman, publisher of the National Business
Review, said.
The transcripts are of several interviews with three children several months
apart in 1992, according to a statement published on the same page.
The children, aged 5 and 6, describe alleged abuse by creche workers in
response to questions by interviewers. The answers given by the same child on
different interview occasions differs.
Mr Colman said he had hundreds of pages of transcripts which he planned to
publish on a website by the end of the week.
"We were only able to give a sample in the paper. I've had queries about
what else is there and how selective were we, so I'm keen that the whole
exercise becomes transparent."
Mr Colman said he believed Ellis' original defence team was "cut off at
the knees" because it was not able to present all the videotaped
interviews as evidence.
"They weren't able to show the more ridiculous claims from the children and
they weren't able to cross examine anyone on the more ridiculous claims."
Although he did not know Peter Ellis, he felt compelled to do this because he
believed there had been a miscarriage of justice.
Mr Colman, who included his mobile telephone number on the advertisement, said
he had not received a single call opposing the publication of the transcript.
On Saturday, the Christchurch Press published the results of a survey the
newspaper had commissioned in
But Justice Minister Phil Goff last night said 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 an advance copy of
the advertisement late last week, and was told it contained no new evidence.
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.
National list MP, Katherine Rich, of
"I think what he is doing is really important because so much evidence was
not put before a jury."
More than 2000 people had signed a second petition calling for the inquiry, she
said.
Mr Ellis' lawyer, Judith Ablett-Kerr, could not be
contacted for comment.