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Sunday
Star Times
September 28, 2003
Letters to the Editor
Justice
for Ellis? What a laugh
Geoff Levick, Auckland
Your soapbox writer Jeffrey Masson (September 21) has missed the point. Our justice
system has clearly failed in the Peter Ellis case. There are a lot of
questions unanswered.
For example: why weren't the four women and Ellis' mother charged as they
were equally accused? How did children get regularly defecated and urinated
on and not one person noticed the dirt and smell? How did a child get
ritually murdered and nobody was charged and there are no missing children?
How did animals get sacrificed and yet there are no traces of animal blood?
How did children go down tunnels and trapdoors when there aren't any? Who
were the groups of men who participated? Why was nobody charged?
How come ACC was allowed to offer thousands of dollars for stories, and only
then did the stories come?
If there had been all six accused in the dock, and all the stories heard, the
judge would not have been able to keep order in the court as it dissolved
into hysterical laughter. That is why we need an inquiry.
Ellis
doubt
Allan Lemm, Queenstown
In response to the Soapbox article by Jeffrey Masson of Auckland University's
philosophy department, I found it rather disturbing in content.
I realise philosophy is somewhat abstract in subject matter but I would have
thought he would have been more analytical of the book A City Possessed by
Lynley Hood.
There are a few basic points of interest within that book. No factual
evidence of Peter Ellis' guilt has ever been submitted. There was no evidence
of anyone seeing anything untoward at the creche.
All complaints by the children were considered to be true. Tapes were
sanitised and the incredible was deleted. No cross examination of children
was allowed -the credibility of children could not be challenged.
It is blatantly obvious Ellis was convicted on evidence not beyond reasonable
doubt.
The case is just the tip of the new sexual abuse industry. In a period of two
years 12,000 claims have been lodged. Lawyers, therapists, philosophers and
analysts are having a field day.
It's a fraud
Derek Browne, Christchurch
Suppose I am conducting a scientific experiment. I get some good results and
some bad results. The bad results show that the experimental procedure I was
using is unreliable.
However, I suppress the bad results and publish the good results. That is
scientific fraud.
In the Peter Ellis case, the interviews with young children yielded some
usable results and some incredible results. The incredible results show that
the procedure used was unreliable. However the usable results were presented
in evidence and the incredible results were suppressed.
That is analogous to scientific fraud.
Case
an indictment
Dr Michael Cresswell, Rotorua
In his soapbox article professor Jeffrey Masson chose to attack Lynley Hood,
rather than discuss the innocence or guilt of Peter Ellis.
He needs to realise the innocence of Ellis is not something Hood invented.
Far from it.
Well before her book was published most sensible people who had studied the
case were aware what was claimed was impossible and that there was absolutely
no corroborating evidence to back up any of the children's claims.
It is an indictment on our legal system that while similar cases have
occurred in other countries -for example Christopher Lillie in the United
Kingdom - a fair hearing has eventually allowed the establishment of
innocence, while our system gets stuck on the "no new evidence"
line.
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