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NZ
Herald
August 9, 2003
Author gets top marks for Ellis-case work
by Alan Perrott
Lynley Hood,
author of a controversial book which pulled apart the case against convicted
child molester Peter Ellis, has been awarded a doctorate in literature.
The Dunedin-based author will be capped at the University of Otago
in December.
Her book A City Possessed: The Christchurch Civic Creche Case was published
in 2001 and immediately sparked calls for a royal commission of inquiry into
the case.
Hood said she was honoured to have her work recognised, but doubted it could
boost the credibility of her campaign.
"It's got a lot of credibility already," she said.
"I guess it will help, but having the huge weight of legal support and
also a whole raft of psychology professors saying the Government and courts
have got it wrong and that there must be an inquiry, that's the really
important thing.
"There has never been a case in this country that has the weight of
public, legal and scholarly opinion behind it that there is with this
case."
Hood submitted four books for her doctorate which were reviewed by three
examiners: one from Otago
University, one from
another New Zealand
university and one from overseas.
Two of the examiners said Hood would have been granted a doctorate for the
Ellis book alone.
Hood has no doubt that Ellis will one day be pardoned.
"I don't know how long it will take, but it will happen because we are
not going to lie down," she said.
But the academic recognition has done nothing to convince Justice Minister
Phil Goff of her cause.
"Guilt and innocence will always be decided by the judicial system and
not by politicians, authors, newspaper publishers or by mass opinion,"
he said after hearing of the award.
"I make no judgments of guilt or innocence. I follow the letter of the
law.
"This must be a judicial decision, not a personal one."
Mr Goff said there was nothing in the book or the pro-Ellis campaign being
mounted by newspaper publisher Barry Colman that had not already been
considered in court.
"Having already set up a ministerial inquiry into that evidence with the
best qualified person in charge, do I then reject his decision, two Court of
Appeal decisions and a unanimous jury decision which was supported by the
presiding judge, all on the basis of the same evidence?"
The minister said Ellis' supporters were yet to come up with any new evidence
which threatened the safety of the original conviction.
But Mr Colman said the minister was forgetting whom he worked for.
"The reason we elect Parliament is to give them the power to change
things when institutions like the courts get them wrong and can't correct it
themselves," he said.
He had no doubt Hood's doctorate would boost the Ellis campaign and said he
would host a celebration to mark her award at a hotel in Port Chalmers.
A petition signed by more than 800 people supporting his call for a royal
commission will be put before a select committee hearing at Parliament this
month.
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