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The
Christchurch Civic Creche Case |
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Peter Ellis, a
convicted paedophile, could be given another chance to clear his name
following a new Court of Appeal ruling which hits expert evidence given by
psychologists. The appeal court judgement,
released on Christmas Eve, will force psychologists to be more specific about
the signs of child abuse - and could affect hundreds of child sex abuse
cases. The latest issue of NZ
Lawyer reports the case could give Peter Ellis, convicted of abuses at the
Christchurch Civic Crèche more than 10 years ago, a fresh chance to clear his
name. Lynley Hood, Dunedin
author of multiple award-winning A City
Possessed, told NZ Lawyer the Crown would have been "laughed out of
court" if the new judgement was used at the time of the Ellis case. She said if the recent
appeal court ruling had applied to Ellis' case, evidence by the prosecution's
expert witness Dr Karen Zelas would have been considered irrelevant. This recent ruling
looked at whether the evidence of a registered psychologist called at trial
complied with section 23G of the Evidence Act, which governs the
admissibility of expert evidence in child sexual abuse cases. It allows
expert evidence on whether a complainant's behaviour was consistent or inconsistent
with a sexually abused child of similar age. The recent judgement
found the expert must go further, discussing how consistent it is and also
whether it was consistent with other factors. Bernard Robertson,
co-author of Interpreting Evidence : Evaluating Forensic Science in the
Courtroom, told NZ Lawyer the judgement placed more responsibility on experts
to describe how likely abuse was when discussing complainant behaviour. "Cases such as
these should be the subject of the Governor-General's reference to the Court
of Appeal because they're miscarriages of justice by which hundreds of people
have gone to jail," Mr Robertson said. Ellis was convicted in
1993 of abusing seven children in his care between 1986 and 1991. He was
freed in 2000 after serving two-thirds of a 10-year sentence. It is believed that
police investigation took place after claims a child from the crèche told his
father he "hated Peter's black penis". This prompted other
parents to question their children about whether they had been molested. The Ellis conviction
sparked debate over the techniques involved in questioning very young
children about such crimes. |
