Letter sent to the National Business Review
August 6 2003

I congratulate Barry Colman
by Gordon Waugh, Auckland

I congratulate Barry Colman on his courage to actually do something about the conviction of Peter Ellis.

Despite Phil Goff's ostrich-like stance, the call for a Royal Commission is appropriate sensible, and welcome. At the very least level, the Commission's Terms of Reference must require it to investigate matters surrounding the methods used by counsellors to derive "evidence of abuse", their automatic presumption of guilt, the reliability of such evidence, how and why it was selectively filtered, the systemic flaws in the ACC system, and the extensive amendments and additions 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 same 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. Your readers might reflect on the observation "There, but for the grace of God, go I."