Letter sent to the Dominion-Post :
August 6 2003

There, but for the grace of God, go I
by Gordon Waugh, Auckland

Your article "Old evidence with a new spin" (Aug 5) is a bit off the beam ! The call for a Royal Commission to investigate matters surrounding the conviction of Peter Ellis has little to do with his guilt or innocence.

It is focused on the methods used by counsellors to derive evidence, their automatic presumption of guilt, the reliability of such evidence, how and why it was filtered, the systemic flaws in the ACC system, and the extensive amendments to Section 23 of the Evidence Act.

The Christchurch Creche case is virtually identical to scores of others overseas. With few exceptions, those convictions have since been quashed by appellate courts because the methods used, and the children's evidence, were unreliable and fatally flawed.

Over the past decade, those methods have resulted in tens of thousands of New Zealand men being accused of sexual abuse. The effect has been devastating to our community. Until these problems are resolved by a Royal Commission, thousands more will suffer the same fate. I trust that the article's author prays every night, and comments "There, but for the grace of God, go I."