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The
Dominion Post
August 16 2003.
‘I am sick of being called a liar’
by Linley Boniface
A decade after the Christchurch Civic Creche sex abuse trial, two of the
children whose evidence has now been called into question by supporters of
Peter Ellis tell Linley Boniface why they feel betrayed.
Tom and Katrina went to creche together. This is the first time they've seen
each other in a decade, and the two 17-year-olds have a lot to catch up on.
But their conversation isn't about
friends, or cars, or schools; it's about things that happened to them in
toilets, and bathtubs, and other secret places. Most of all, it's about
memories — memories they've been struggling to make sense of since they were
little.
"Do you remember the black jackets and the hats?" says Katrina,
leaning forward on the sofa at Tom's parents' house and crossing her arms
across her chest. "I keep remembering these — yeah, they're black —
black jackets and these hats. Do you remember them? Do you?"
Later, she looks at Tom again. "Did you use to have nightmares? I had
nightmares for a long time."
Tom and Katrina are not their real names, which cannot be used for legal
reasons. If you've read Lynley Hood's book, A City Possessed: The Christchurch Civic Creche Case, you'll
recognise them as Bart Dogwood and Kari Lacebark. If you saw the double page
advertisement in the Sunday Star-Times earlier this month, headlined The
Toddler Testimonies, you'll know them as B and K. And the "he" Tom
refers to is, of course, Peter Ellis, who is, depending on your viewpoint, either
a ruthless and unrepentant convicted child molester or the victim of one of
the greatest miscarriages of justice in New Zealand's history.
The campaign to clear Ellis is gaining momentum: more than 800 people have
signed a petition calling for a royal commission of inquiry into the case.
The petition is to go before a select committee hearing at Parliament later
this month.
Tom and Katrina were pivotal to the Crown case against Ellis. In June 1993,
Ellis was found guilty of 16 out of 25 charges of sexual abuse of seven young
children (three of the convictions were quashed a year later, when one child
withdrew her allegations). Three of the convictions related to Tom and four
related to Katrina. Ellis was sentenced to 10 years in prison, and served seven.
There was no physical evidence, and there were no adult eyewitnesses to the
abuse; Ellis was found guilty on the basis of the children's evidential
interviews and courtroom testimony. The jury's decision that such young
children could be trusted to give an accurate report of what had happened to
them has polarised commentators ever since.
Do young children lie? And, if so, do they lie about something as serious as
sexual abuse? Can they draw the line between fact and fantasy, between memory
and imagination? And, most importantly, can they be manipulated by those they
trust into believing the unreal is real?
The children in the Christchurch Civic Creche case have grown into teenagers.
They no longer need to be told the difference between a truth and a lie; they
don't need an interpreter to help them describe parts of their bodies, or
sexual acts or the way they feel. They have found their voices.
The Dominion Post was present when Tom and Katrina met up a week ago, at
Tom's house in Christchurch.
It was the first time they had seen each other since the end of the High
Court trial. They had spoken on the phone a few days previously, when Tom
told Katrina he was thinking of breaking his 10-year silence by talking to a
reporter about the case. Katrina said she'd like to take part in the
interview, too.
It was not an easy meeting. Tom and Katrina felt understandably anxious and
uncertain; we spoke for almost four hours, and by the end of the evening they
looked exhausted and shaky. Both teenagers were so tired the next day that
they were allowed to stay home from school.
Also present were Tom's parents, Jill and Michael, and Katrina's parents,
Sarah and Gavin. Their names have also been changed to protect the identities
of the children. Tom and Katrina were asked a final few further questions at
the end of the evening, when they were talking together in Tom's room.
For the first half hour, it was like any meeting between people who had known
each other well a long time ago but had since lost touch: the parents
exclaimed over how much each other's children had grown, and exchanged the
usual anecdotes about the trials of raising teenagers. Then the conversation
took a darker turn.
First of all, Tom wanted to say why he'd agreed to the interview. He had been
thinking about talking for some time, he said, but the catalyst had been the
much-heralded advertisement in the Sunday Star-Times on August 3. The ad was
paid for by publisher Barry Colman, who called the children's evidential
interviews "gibberish" and said they would show Ellis was the
victim of a hysterical witch-hunt.
"I would have been happy to never talk about the abuse ever again. I
want to forget it. But I'm sick of being called a liar. And if I don't say
anything, Peter Ellis will keep going around saying he's innocent and more
people will believe him," says Tom.
"The only thing that ad did was
to make it harder for me and Katrina and for all the other kids to live with
what happened. If someone had told me when I was six that everything I said
would end up all over the papers 10 years later, I wouldn't have wanted to
testify. I feel like my trust has been betrayed."
The ad featured transcripts of interviews with Tom and Katrina, some of which
were not played to the jury (Justice Minister Phil Goff has said the Crown
Law Office assured him the ad contained no new evidence, and that all
transcripts had been made available to defence lawyers to use in
cross-examinations before the jury convicted Ellis).
Katrina believed the ad made her look "like an idiot", and she was
particularly angry that a highlighted quote misrepresented what she had said.
The highlighted quote read:
Q When his penis touched you there,
were your clothes on or off?
A On.
Q They were on. What about his clothes?
A They were on.
. . .
A I want to go. How long have I been
here now?
The quote implies Katrina claimed Ellis touched her with his penis while he
was fully clothed. The missing part of the excerpt between "They were
on" and "I want to go", which was featured in much smaller
type in the body of the text, runs as follows:
Q They were on, too?
A Yeah, but not his trousers.
In a second highlighted quote, one of the children referred to going to the
"womble area" — which, to those unfamiliar with the creche, would
suggest the child had confused aspects of the case with a TV cartoon. In
fact, younger children at Christchurch Civic Creche were known as Wombles,
and pre-schoolers were Big Kids. Comments like this were put into context
during the trial.
The Colman ad also claimed the children's evidence changed markedly over the
course of their interviews. In Tom's first interview, it said, "all B
[Tom] could come up with was a memory of Ellis cleaning him up on the creche
changing table. The contrast between that story and the bizarre allegations
in his later interviews (recorded after months of parental questioning and
sexual abuse therapy) is extraordinary".
This accusation — that parents and counsellors manipulated the children into
making up the allegations of abuse — is the cornerstone of Lynley Hood's
book. It infuriates Tom: "It's bullshit that we were told what to say
The parents had nothing to do with what we said; all my parents ever said to
me was that I should tell the truth.
"Of course we didn't say much at our first interview. Would you? I
didn't want to say anything to anyone I didn't trust. I was real scared of
Peter Ellis."
Katrina: "How would a five-year-old know about ejaculation? My parents
had never talked about that to me. I was able to describe it because of what
Peter Ellis did to me, not because anyone had told me about it"
Katrina's dad, Gavin, says he finds it frustrating that transcripts can be
taken out of context, without any of the intense scrutiny that occurred
during the judicial process. "The jury was able to see the children
giving evidence on video. They watched very young children go through the
anxiety of remembering things that were very painful to them. They didn't
just hear the words; they were able to see the children's body language. They
were also able to see that the children backed up each other's stories."
Much has been made of the number of interviews the children were subjected
to. Tom and Katrina say the experience was indeed very distressing — Katrina
asked her mother to check every toilet and look behind every door in the
building where the interviews took place — but they do not believe they were
pushed into saying anything they didn't want to say.
During our interview, the parents' relationships with Tom and Katrina
appeared supportive and caring. Gavin, Sarah, Jill and Michael did not
attempt to speak on behalf of their children, or tell them what to say, and
there was no evidence of coaching. Indeed, if there was a surprise it was
that the two sets of parents seemed very different to the way they were
portrayed in A City Possessed.
In Hood's book, one mother—who she called Ms Magnolia — is described as the
instigator of the abuse accusations. Hood says it was "probably
inevitable" that Ms Magnolia would accuse Peter Ellis of abusing her
son, and implies that other parents who made complaints on behalf of their
children simply got caught up in the witch hunt.
The language used to describe the parents is often dismissive. When
describing Sarah's initial concerns that her daughter had been abused, she
says: "The next of Ms Magnolia's supporters to spring into action was Ms
Lacebark." Jill and Michael's questioning of their son is an
"interrogation"; when Tom reveals the location of an alleged
incident of abuse, he has "hit the jackpot". After Tom had given
his evidence in court, said Hood, "the rest of the kids seemed
tame".
Tom and Katrina's parents have a rather different recollection of the whole
affair. For starters, far from jumping on the abuse bandwagon, they say they
wanted to believe it wasn't true. Both mothers felt sure their kids would
have told them if anyone was hurting them.
Sarah had worried for months about a persistent red rash around Katrina's
genital area. She had suspected abuse for a fleeting moment, but immediately
dismissed the thought as ridiculous. The idea that she could have been abused
at the creche was unthinkable to Sarah, who served on the management
committee.
Jill and Michael say they missed the first signs that Tom was in trouble.
"One night when Michael had an old high school mate over for dinner, Tom
put his fork in the carrots and said, 'This looks just like a big fat penis
that you put in your mouth.' We sent him to his room and told him he couldn't
come out till he'd apologised."
Michael: "When Tom did finally start telling us what had happened, I
kept saying, 'Are you sure about that?' I didn't really want to believe
him."
Many of the children involved in the case were said to have suffered behavioural
problems, including nightmares, tantrums, bedwetting, separation anxiety,
fear of men, sexual disorders and toileting problems. For a year and a half
before the abuse was uncovered, Katrina was terrified of going to the toilet.
She also lost her coordination. "I used to play ball with Dad, but I
froze up. I couldn't catch a ball, and I couldn't kick a ball, and I couldn't
climb the bars. I'd call Mum out to watch me on the bars, but I'd just hang
there without being able to move my hands," says Katrina.
The day after Katrina told her parents she was being abused, she called her
parents outside to watch her on the bars again. Her mother assumed that, as
always, she'd be unable to move. "But I was wrong—that day she was able
to move," Sarah remembers.
"For a week after her disclosures, we had our happy, jocular little girl
back again. Then it got worse. And then she told us she wanted to kill
herself because she was so frightened."
Like Katrina, Tom was frightened of going to the toilet — the smell of toilets
was, for a long time, unbearable to him. He had eating problems, insisted on
being fully dressed at all times and became a perfectionist. He was terrified
of baths—Ellis was convicted of abusing him in a bath — and found large
groups of children and certain children's games extremely frightening.
But is it the memory of the abuse that frightened him, or just the
recollection of being told he had been abused? Now, at 17, can he honestly
say that he remembers the abuse itself?
"Yeah. I remember lots of it vividly," says Tom.
Tom's testimony was the most controversial of all the children's because some
of it was so bizarre and disturbing. His allegations of ritual abuse in
particular have become a focus of attention for Ellis' supporters. Does Tom
still believe everything he said was true?
Yes, says Tom. "I stand by everything I said when I was little. I didn't
make anything up. But back then I believed everything I was told. Now 1 can
make more sense of it . . . for example, I was told I was put down a trap
door. Now I think it was just a laundry chute with cushions at the bottom.
But when you're a little kid, you think adults are always telling you the
truth."
Jill shows me a picture Tom drew when he was seven. The picture is of a
graveyard. Children are buried in coffins under the earth; there are speech
bubbles coming from their mouths saying "help". A stick figure man
with big eyes and a big smile is standing above them. "Peter is
laughing," reads the caption.
The graveyard theme emerged from another source during Ellis' trial.
Childcare worker Tracy O'Connor said Ellis had come up with the idea of
taking "staged" photos of a children's party at the creche. Ellis
told a boy to lie on the ground on his back with his hands crossed over his
chest, as though he were dead. A spade had been placed so it appeared to be
impaling him.
Katrina is equally vehement when asked if she remembers the abuse. "I
remember lots of it. Most of all, I remember how scared it made me."
Tom and Katrina are bright, articulate, attractive teenagers. They do,
however, seem older than their years, and the decade since the trial has
clearly not been easy for either of them.
For Tom, his love of sport and the support of his family — especially his
older brothers — helped him to feel safe again. He has a girlfriend and lots
of friends, not one of whom knows he went to Christchurch Civic Creche.
Katrina seems to have found it harder to cope. For a long time, she used to
vomit whenever she talked about Ellis. She saw him once, in a shop, and felt
sick all over again.
She has a boyfriend, but even the thought of sex triggers flashbacks.
Sport has been very important to Katrina, and has been a great healer.
Friends have also been crucial to her recovery.
"I've got an awesome bunch of friends. I always try to have a group of
good friends now, because when I was little I lost all my friends. I don't
know anyone I went to preschool with.
"I think I grew up too quickly You know, my friends often say how much
they loved being little. I didn't; I hated being little. But I've done with
crying. I just want to be a normal teenager now."
Most of the parents of the Christchurch Civic Creche children have lost
contact with each other. There was an obvious breach between those who
supported Ellis and those who didn't, but parents who believed their children
had been abused were discouraged from talking to each other for fear of
contaminating the evidence. Some have found it too painful to stay in touch;
some have left Christchurch;
some thought it best for their children if the creche was never mentioned
again.
One father who left Christchurch
said a teacher advised him to erase the name of his son's old crèche from his
school files. "That was one of the best pieces of advice I've ever been
given," he says.
Tom and Katrina's parents have only told their most trusted friends of their
involvement in the case. They often hear workmates say they believe Ellis is
innocent. Sarah and Gavin have had enough now: they're thinking about leaving
New Zealand
for good.
Both families ask repeatedly why everyone seems to believe Ellis, despite the
fact that his case has already been through a jury trial, two appeals and a
ministerial inquiry And they ask why so many journalists seem happy to report
everything Ellis and his supporters say without bothering to ask the victims'
families for comment.
They also point out the irony in the fact that Ellis has a well-run and
well-bankrolled campaign behind him, while the families don't even have a
legal representative.
The families believe A City Possessed
tells only half the story —Ellis' half — and were particularly angered by a
recent comment by Hood that the children deserved to "know the truth and
go forward into adulthood with the whole thing sorted".
Tom says the matter is sorted already "We were there, we know it
happened. It's not easy to live with, but I could live with it if everyone
didn't keep bringing it up all the time. The only closure I want is for Peter
Ellis to admit he did it."
At the end of the evening, Tom and Katrina give each other a hug. They are
like typical teenagers now, talking about mobile phones and mutual friends
and parties. Then Tom says how great it is to have someone who knows his
background; how it makes him feel less alone.
"It was good that our parents talked for us when we were little, but we
can speak up for ourselves now. We can do our own talking," says Tom.
"If Peter Ellis is reading this, I'd like him to know that I'm not a
scared little boy any longer."
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