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The Christchurch Civic
Creche Case |
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The Timaru Herald Renewed calls for a commission of inquiry
into the Peter Ellis case are being made after a new analysis slams the
ministerial inquiry into his convictions as a "sham". The two-part article, written by
librarian and long-time Ellis researcher Ross Francis, of Wellington, has
been published in this month's New Zealand Law Journal. Ellis, convicted of 13 charges of
sexually abusing children at the Christchurch Civic Childcare Centre, has
been fighting to clear his name since being sentenced to 10 years jail in
1993. On top of a High Court trial and
two failed Appeal Court hearings, a ministerial inquiry was conducted in
2000. The inquiry, headed by Sir Thomas
Eichelbaum, found that the interviewing of the children who gave evidence was
appropriate and that the reliability of the evidence on which the convictions
were based was not undermined by contamination by others. A spokesman for Ellis supporters,
Richard Christie, said the latest article showed Eichelbaum's inquiry was a
"sham" designed to "bury rather than examine doubts previously
raised by three of the world's foremost experts on children's
testimony". "It calls into question the
conduct of officials and has ensured that the case will not be going away
anytime soon," he said. Ellis's lawyer, Judith
Ablett-Kerr, said the article was "very concerning". |
