The Press
August 4 2003

Inquiry 'not justified'
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Justice Minister Phil Goff says he has legal advice that previously unpublished testimonies of children in the Peter Ellis paedophile case do not justify another inquiry.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 a Sunday newspaper 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 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, asking 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 knew "that some of the material was bizarre and fanciful."