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The |
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The Broadcasting Standards
Authority has issued a finding that requires Radio New The BSA said that RNZ had breached
standards of fairness and balance in a Linda Clark hosted interview on Nine
to Noon in which an anonymous mother and son made new, unspecified
allegations concerning Mr Ellis and the
Christchurch Civic Crèche in 1985 -- allegations which had not been part of
the court proceedings concerning the Crèche and were presented in an unfair
and unbalanced manner. In finding that the broadcast
seriously breached standards of fairness and balance, the BSA noted that Mr Ellis had been anonymously accused of criminal but
unspecified offending of a very serious kind. The station had argued that Mr Ellis had been given a chance to appear on the
broadcast but had declined. But the BSA found that while Mr Ellis had previously declined an invitation to
participate in what he was told would be a 'sympathetic' interview, he had
not been made aware of the new allegations before they were broadcast. Even
so, the BSA said, the allegations were so vague they would have been
impossible to defend. The case revolved on issues of
fact and style and involved allegations of unspecified conduct that would
have taken place before Mr Ellis had been employed
by, or become known to staff at, the Crèche. When Ms Clark raised that problem
to both the alleged victim (identified only as "Nathan") and his
mother, she was told by the mother that: "The Police said at the
beginning when we went to the Police they said that no, it couldn’t have been
Peter Ellis because he wasn’t employed there then, but they came back to me
later on and said no, we have a very reliable witness who says yes, Peter
Ellis was associated and hanging out with people at the crèche at that
time." Ms Clark let that unsubstantiated
allegation stand. In its decision, the BSA said:
"Mr Ellis has been convicted of and has served
a prison sentence for sexual offences.... He is nonetheless a citizen of this
country and, like all other citizens, is entitled to be treated justly and
fairly. The Authority notes its deep concern at what amounted to a serious
disregard for Mr Ellis's rights." In all, the BSA required RNZ to
pay $5,300 legal costs to the complainant, to broadcast an apology on Nine to
Noon, to publish a summary of the decision in the four major metropolitan
daily newspapers, and to pay the maximum level of costs to the Crown of
$5,000. Other possible penalties that
might have been imposed by the BSA included requiring the broadcaster to
cease broadcasting for a period. The BSA said it did not invoke this option
as it did not see an overriding merit in disadvantaging the programme's usual audience. As Radio New The full decision, including a
transcript of the Nine to Noon broadcast, is available here. |
