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The
Sunday Star Times
August 10 2003
The Ellis case: Time for Action
Editorial
The Peter Ellis
case won't go away. Despite repeated court hearings and an inquiry by Sir
Thomas Eichelbaum, the suspicion persists that an injustice has been done.
Justice Minister Phil Goff points to these investigations and refuses to
re-open the case, despite a petition signed by 11 law professors, 11 Queen's
Counsels, and a retired high court judge. Goff is wrong to refuse. The
Christchurch Civic Creche affair suggests the experts can get it repeatedly
wrong. Disturbing problems and issues remain, and a royal commission is
needed to examine them.
Lynley Hood, author of a carefully reasoned book about the case, lists today
15 things that Goff needs to know Some of these are more persuasive than
others, but together they have an accumulated force. The investigation seems
to have been flawed from the start. Police and social welfare staff appear to
have imbibed extreme notions about the incidence of child abuse, and even
about the possibility of sadistic and secretive "Satanic"
practices.
Hood convincingly argues that the "experts", fired by these
beliefs, made statements that alarmed creche parents and contributed to the
contamination of evidence. Repeated parental I questioning of children seems
to have produced wild stories that, unsurprisingly, reflected the parents'
fears. It was commonly believed at the time that children's evidence was
broadly reliable. Most parents, if they are not personally involved in such
matters and have a cool moment for thought, would now treat that claim with
scepticism.
Modern societies fondly tell themselves that they are rational, secular and
scientific: they are not easily fooled. Modern history persistently
demonstrates the opposite: that whole populations will follow mad demagogues
preaching hatred and bad science into warfare and massacre A low-level kind
of hysteria seems to have operated in Christchurch a decade or so ago. Hood's
book points out that the keenest and most convinced witch-hunters in the 16th
and 17th centuries were learned men: scientists, lawyers, scholars and
philosophers The intelligentsia is all too easily captured by ideas - even
crazy ones.
A royal commission is needed to examine the matters that have not been
properly investigated so far These include the issue of early contamination,
and the shortcomings of the court cases and of Eichelbaum's inquiry. The
commission should examine all the interviews of children, not just those
shown to juries. It should look at the issue of possible conflicts of
evidence by key crown witnesses. It should do a reality check on the creche
itself, to test whether the alleged offences could plausibly have happened
there It should examine the case of .I the child who later recanted.
Goff says he has an open mind on the matter: if the critics can produce new
evidence, he says, he will look at it. This is to misunderstand, or at least
to misstate, the problem. What is needed is not some blinding new fact. What
is needed is a proper re-examination of the procedures and inquiries and issues
that have now become all too familiar. Goff is reluctant to do this, for
obvious reasons.
Governments end up being defensive about controversies that are potentially
embarrassing to cherished institutions such as the courts. What is needed,
now, is political intervention, and a fresh inquiry. The commission must be
headed by someone other than a New Zealand judge or retired
judge The judiciary has now become so deeply entangled in the affair that an
outsider perhaps an Australian judge will be needed. This, after all, is a
case where popular opinion is clearly out of line with all the official
verdicts. There is only one way to restore public confidence in this case.
There must be a high powered commission that is not only independent, but is
clearly seen to be so.
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