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The Broadcasting Standards
Authority (BSA) today released a decision upholding a complaint from Peter
Ellis about an interview conducted on National Radio's Nine to Noon programme
in August 2003. Mr Ellis, a After almost seven years he was
freed in 2000, having always maintained his innocence. In a statement today the BSA said
it had ordered Radio New Zealand (RNZ) to pay $5300 legal costs to the
complainant, and to broadcast an apology on Nine to Noon. RNZ was also to publish a summary
of the decision in the four major metropolitan daily newspapers, and pay the
maximum level of costs to the crown of $5000. During the broadcast an anonymous
mother and son had been interviewed. They had made new, unspecified
allegations concerning Mr Ellis and the
Christchurch Civic Creche in 1985, which had not
been part of the court proceedings concerning the creche,
the statement said. The BSA had ruled that the
broadcast seriously breached standards of fairness and balance. It noted that
Mr Ellis was being anonymously accused of criminal
but unspecified offending of a very serious kind. Mr Ellis had previously declined an
invitation to participate in a "sympathetic" interview. He had not
been made aware of the new allegations before they were broadcast. Even so
the allegations were so vague they would have been impossible to defend, the
statement said. The allegations made by the
interviewees had been neither substantiated nor critically examined by the
broadcaster. In any case the nature and type of allegations would have made
balance very difficult to achieve. 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." |
