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Sunday
Star Times
September 21, 2003
Soapbox:
Should there be an inquiry into the Christchurch
creche case?
Yes, Don Brash, National MP
No Jeffrey Masson, Auckland University
Yes,
there should be an inquiry into the Christchurch
creche case
Don Brash
National MP
On June 24, an 807 signature petition calling for a Royal Commission of
Inquiry into the Christchurch Civic Creche case was presented to parliament.
The same day a second, identical petition was opened to give everyone the
opportunity to do so.
No other similar petition to parliament has been supported by so many
distinguished legal, political, professional and scholarly authorities –
including a dozen Queen’s Counsel, a similar number of law professors, a
retired high court judge, and two former prime ministers (one of them a
lawyer). These are not people who can be dismissed as likely to be carried
away by public hysteria.
Among the petitioners are 26 members of parliament, members of all seven
parties. This is clearly not a party political issue.
There is now a wide spread consensus that in the creche case the justice
system failed at many levels and, so far at least, has been unable to
self-correct.
Unease about the safety of Peter Ellis’s convictions is based on many
well-founded concerns: that the evidence was contaminated; that the
allegations were improbable or unbelievable; that the jury did not see the
full picture; and that two appeal courts and a ministerial inquiry failed to
properly review the whole case.
The case raises wider concerns that must be addressed. There is concern over
police and CYPS investigative procedures that turn allegations into evidence
without pausing for reality checks along the way, and over a justice system
that seems unable to distinguish between the guilty and the innocent. Most
importantly, there is widespread concern over the damage being done to the
relationships between all adults and all children by sexual abuse anxiety and
the fear of false allegations. These concerns cannot and should not be
ignored.
Justice Minister Phil Goff has the constitutional authority to instruct the
governor-general to establish a royal commission of inquiry into the creche
case. He could do it tomorrow. He doesn’t need new evidence. He doesn’t need
the permission of the judiciary.
All he needs is moral courage and political will. As Edmund Burke said: “The
only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
No,
there should not be an inquiry into the Christchurch
creche case
Jeffrey Masson,
Philosophy Dept, Auckland University.
I do not think there should be a commission of inquiry into the Ellis case
merely because the author of a book thinks there should be, unless she has
produced evidence not previously known.
Lynley Hood’s book, A City Possessed, does nothing of the kind. The first
three chapters of that book are supposed to lay the groundwork for her case
by reviewing the literature dealing with the figures for the incidence of
child sexual abuse.
The book consistently mocks and distorts the literature. Having given a
completely mangled version of the serious research to date, Hood heaps scorn
on peaple who dedicate their lives to research and therapy about child abuse,
writing that “ the harm inflicted on innocent people by criminals and
psychopaths is minuscule compared to the harm inflicted by ordinary,
well-intentioned citizens going about their daily work in a spirit of duty,
loyalty and service”, no doubt a reference to the people who believe in the
harm of child sexual abuse.
Alas, the denial of child abuse bears striking similarities with denial of
the Holocaust. We see one similarity when Hood compares these “true
believers” (as sher diparagingly calls them) to Eichmann, the Nazi officer in
charge of sending Jews to Auschwitz, using the much criticised thesis of
Arendt, that Eichmann was simply “terribly and terrifyingly normal”. (It is
beyond my understanding how anyone can believe that a man who was responsible
for sending over a million Jews to their death in gas chambers is
"normal”)
It is clear Hood was determined to find Ellis innocent, as she would no doubt
have found Eichmann innocent. In a bizarre twist on “blaming the victim”, she
clearly believes the harm lies not with Ellis, or even with child abuse in
general, but with all those who believed Ellis was Guilt: the children, their
parents, the jury, and the judges.
After all, this case has been viewed and reviewed many times by completely
independent experts, none of whom would have any reason to want to find Ellis
guilty and provided with thousands of pages of documents and testimony unseen
by the general public.
It would be a perversion of justice to overrule their guilty verdict on the
basis of a biased, ignorant and woefuly inadequate book.
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