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http://www.varsity.co.nz/features/column_article.asp?id=143&cid=5&cname=Features
www.varsity.co.nz
August 26, 2003
Why Peter Ellis Should Be Pardoned
by Steven Sliepen, [email protected]
After a decade of debate, it seems the Peter Ellis case is simply not going
to just go away. It also seems there is nothing to write about it that has
not already been written a hundred times over. Anyone who has studied The
Crucible will be all too aware of the ability history has to repeat itself.
The extraordinary, vindictive ignorance of the hyper-zealous parents,
therapists and “experts” involved in the Christchurch Civic Creche circus
beggars belief. Why these people were so dead-set on believing that the
children had been abused is utterly bewildering. Their callous determination
to paint the man who had cared for their children as the personification of
depravity is unforgivable.
Plaudits must go out to people such as Lynley Hood, Katherine Rich, Don Brash
and Barry Coleman for lending their own weight behind the campaign to give
Peter Ellis a full and deserved pardon. Anyone who has reached their own
conclusions about Ellis’s guilt without reading Hood’s extraordinarily well
researched and argued A City Possessed should bite their tongue and hold
their pride until they have read it.
At the risk of repeating what dozens of others had repeated ad nauseum, I
will give a summary of some of the aspects that make Peter Ellis’s conviction
unsafe, as discussed in Hood’s book:
1) No disclosures were made in the first round of interviews. Disclosures
were only made after repeated interviewing, some interviews lasting around
two and a half hours, enough to wear down any poor child’s defence. Children
who made no disclosures were said to be “in denial.” Children who made
disclosures, it was said, “must be believed” – no matter how outlandish or
imaginative the disclosures. As such, there was no response the children
could give that would not implicate Peter one way or another.
2) Despite being instructed told not to, overzealous parents repeatedly
interrogated their children at home, and there was a great amount of
networking between these parents. Where parents networked, the amount of
“disclosures” grew. As did the level of cross-contamination.
3) The oldest and most credible of all the witnesses later withdrew her
allegations, saying that she only said what she thought she was supposed to
say. This should have been the end of it all. However, while the convictions
related to her were dropped, judges who reviewed resulting appeals said that
she was in denial. She still stands by her claim she lied. Other children who
made allegations have since retracted them, again claiming that the methods
of questioning used resulted in them saying what their interviewers wanted to
hear.
4) Among the disclosures the Creche children made were; being suspended in
cages, having burning paper and sticks inserted up their anuses, watching a
classmate being being pursued by Ellis and killed with an axe, being thrown
down trapdoors, being part of satanic ceremonies, being defecated and
urinated on, etc etc. Not once did a parent report their children to come
back from creche soiled in any way. No bruises or any other kind of injuries
were ever reported. No trapdoors or evidence whatsoever was found of ritual
abuse. The house where the ritual abuse had allegedly taken place –
supposedly ground zero for satanic rituals in Christchurch - was no longer inhabited by
Ellis, and he had paid only one brief visit there with the children.
5) The policeman in charge of the case was homophobic, and held relationships
with the parents and social workers involved in the case. He was known to
show up unexpectedly at the children’s homes to convince them to say things
that would get Ellis locked up.
6) Expert Karen Zelas reported the following behaviours displayed by the
“victims” to be consistent with sexual abuse: sleep disturbances, nightmares,
tummy aches, vomiting, moodiness, separation anxiety, anxiety about school,
loss of concentration, over conscientiousness, low self-esteem, tantrums,
reluctance to go to bed, fear of spiders, not eating spaghetti...the list
goes on. When Ellis’s defence attorney cross-examined Zelas and asked what
behaviours were NOT consistent with sexual abuse, she replied, “I hadn’t
thought of that yet.”
7) In the five years Ellis worked at the Christchurch Civic Creche, no abuse
was seen by any adult whatsoever. Parents and staff came and went freely; for
them to have not walked in on Ellis at all during the allegedly perpetual
offending is scarcely believable.
8) When Ellis took the children for walks (during which orgies and ritual
ceremonies were alleged to have taken place), all of the creche staff bar one
said the walks never lasted more than 70 minutes, and that the children
enjoyed them and never returned in a state of distress.
9) It was alleged by the “victims” that Peter Ellis drove them to the
aforementioned place of abuse. Ellis could not drive and did not have a car.
10) Ellis’s four female co-workers were discharged in regards to the
notorious ritual “circle incident”, charges which Ellis was nonetheless
convicted of.
11) Because he was a homosexual and occasionally made scatological wisecracks
in the company of adults, Ellis was painted as sexually deviant and
perverted, and thus supposedly consistent with the makeup of a child
molester. By this criteria, most homosexual men would have the makeup of a
child molester.
12) Despite the testimony of only a handful of the children being deemed
worthy to take to trial, approximately 40 families from the Civic Creche
received a $10,000 payout from ACC – a windfall that may have acted as an
incentive to many.
13) The mother of the child who made the first disclosure – about Peter’s
“black penis” - that started it all was a militant feminist with a history of
drug and alcohol abuse. After shifting her son from the Civic Creche to
another creche, she proceeded to accuse a male worker at that creche of sexually
abusing her son too.
13) Some of the videotapes of the children being questioned – many of which
showed highly questionable, impressionable methods of questioning – were not
allowed to be shown to the jury by the presiding judge. Thus the convicting
jury never got the full picture of the highly doubtful tactics used to
procure these allegations.
14) Aside from the highly questionable and subjective testimonies of the
children - which despite being irrepairably contaminated, were still allowed
as evidence – there was no physical evidence or any adult witnesses to the
abuse to corroborate their testimonies.
15) The laughable bandwagon of allegations have still not ceased; recently, a
22 year old man known as “Nathan” made allegations that he had been abused by
Ellis when he attended the Civic Creche. “Nathan” left the Creche in 1985.
Peter Ellis did not begin working at the Creche until August 1986.
I could go on and on...A City Possessed is close to 700 pages. So, before
claiming you know best and pronouncing Ellis guilty simply because he looks
like a creep, read the book, and explain away the evidence – or lack of
thereof.
This case has made men afraid of becoming creche workers, teachers,
babysitters, and – god forbid – loving parents. Ellis’s conviction
perpetuates the outrageous myth that a man cannot be left alone in a room
with a small child. As a result, the divide that isolates ordinary, caring
men from our society’s children is widening. The zealots – often with a
grudge against men or homosexuals – who launched the unstoppable juggernaut
of hysteria that saw Ellis locked away are the ones who should be locked away
themselves. For wishing sexual abuse onto their own children, and most likely
scarring them for life by letting them believe that they were sexually
abused. And for destroying the life of a well meaning man who was simply in
the wrong place at the wrong time.
Phil Goff has said that a Royal Commission of Inquiry will not be set up
unless new evidence is introduced by Ellis’s defence team. Why should Ellis’s
team need to provide new evidence when the Crown was never required to
provide any to begin with?
Let’s hope sense prevails.
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