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The Christchurch Civic
Creche Case |
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Poneke’s Weblog The evidential interviews of
children during the Christchurch Civic Creche investigation were much worse
than those conducted in a similar American daycare case that former chief
justice Sir Thomas Eichelbam accepts was a major miscarriage of justice. This is the major finding of new
research by the head of the Otago University psychology department, Professor
Harlene Hayne. Her finding is in sharp contrast
to a 2001 ministerial inquiry into the Civic case by Sir Thomas, who declared
that the Civic interviews were “best practice” and much better than those in
the American case, which he accepted were badly flawed. Professor Hayne analysed hundreds
of pages of verbatim transcripts of the pre-trial interviews with the very
young children involved in the Civic case and in the closely similar 1980s
case of New Jersey daycare worker Kelly Michaels. She found that the Civic children
were each subjected to an average 400 questions by the Social Welfare
specialist services staff who interviewed them on videotape in preparation
for the 1993 trial of daycare worker Peter Ellis, compared with an average
200 questions for each of the New Jersey children. The Civic interviewers also
subjected the children to an average of 20 strongly suggestive questions
each, more than in the discredited Michaels case, when just one suggestive
question was enough to create the possibility of a wrongful allegation of
abuse. “There is a strong risk that the
children’s evidence was contaminated by the way those interviews were
conducted,” Professor Hayne told the Innocence Project conference in
Wellington on Saturday. “The courts should look at this case again.” Ellis was convicted in 1993 of 16
charges of abusing pre-school children at the Civic Childcare Centre in
central Christchurch. Despite always maintaining his innocence, the Court of
Appeal twice disallowed his appeals and he served the full non-parole period
of his 10-year sentence, being freed in 2000. The same year, former Justice
Minister Phil Goff appointed Sir Thomas to inquire into the way the children
were interviewed. His 2001 report found the interviews were conducted
according to best practice and said Ellis had failed to prove his innocence. The Civic case was almost
identical to dozens of daycare abuse cases in the United States and elsewhere
in the 1980s, involving controversial interviewing of young children who
produced bizarre accounts of being urinated and defecated on by their
caregivers, taking part in sacrifices and satanic rituals and being raped and
sodomised. Though no physical evidence of such abuse was found in any of the
cases, scores of US male and female daycare workers were convicted and
jailed. Four women Civic staff were charged along with Ellis, but the charges
against them were dropped just before his trial. Kelly Michaels, 23 at the time of
her 1985 arrest, worked at the Wee Care Nursery School in Maplewood, New
Jersey. After an 11-month trial, she was convicted on 115 counts of sexual
abuse of children and sentenced to 47 years’ jail. She was released on appeal
after five years, with the New Jersey Supreme Court declaring that “the
interviews of the children were highly improper and utilised coercive and
unduly suggestive methods.” The convictions of most of the
other convicted American daycare workers were also quashed, but Ellis has had
no success despite the similarities between their cases and his, which saw
satanic abuse literature from the American cases circulated among the Civic
parents and a conference on ritual abuse being held in Christchurch just
before the first Civic mother made an allegation against Ellis in late 1991. While satanic rituals, infant
sacrifice and other outlandish allegations featured in the Civic case and in
the interviews with Civic children, the Crown left the more bizarre claims
out of its charges and trial judge Justice Neil Williamson stopped the
defence raising them with the jury, which it wanted to do to argue that the
bizarre claims came from the same interviews as the sanitised ones being made
in court. “Eichelbaum said the Ellis interviews
were substantially better than the interviews in the Michaels case,”
Professor Hayne said. “As a scientist, you can test the hypothesis.” She and assistants analysed the
transcripts of interviews with 37 Civic children and 38 Wee Care children and
coded each question on a scale with four levels from “free recall” ones most
likely to get an accurate account of what happened to “suggestive” ones least
likely to result in accurate recall. It was clear from the transcripts
that the Civic interviewers had been told by parents what had allegedly
happened and framed questions to the children accordingly, she said. The results of the analysis
showed: ·
Of the 15,000 questions put to the Civic children, only 11 were free
recall ones such as “tell me what you remember about the Civic.” There were
similarly few free recall questions among the 7600 put to the Wee Care
children, despite controlled laboratory tests showing such questions were the
most likely to produce an accurate answer. ·
Civic children were asked more than twice as many “direct open”
questions of the “what happened in the playroom?” kind, which could also
produce accurate answers because they allowed a wide range of answers. ·
Of the third type, “direct closed,” Civic children proportionately
were asked fewer than Wee Care children. These were of the “was anyone with
you when that happened?” kind, which allowed only a yes or no answer and were
less likely to lead to an accurate response. ·
The Civic children were asked more suggestive questions, such as “the
other kid told me this happened. Did it?” They were the worst possible kind
for obtaining an accurate answer. “Each kid in Ellis was asked an
average of 20 suggestive questions,” said Professor Hayne. “Just one can give
a wrong answer in laboratory tests.” In addition, children’s accuracy
was “terrible” when they faced large numbers of questions. The 400 questions
each Civic child was asked was double the number faced by the Wee Care
children, yet Sir Thomas had said the Civic questioning was best practice. “The standard of the questions was
not consistent with the best practice of the time, as a lot was known then
about the dangers of suggestive questions. The standard of the questions in
Ellis was not substantially better than those in Michaels. “As a scientist, it’s difficult to
talk about certainty. We will never know what really happened. We can’t
reinterview [the grown-up Civic children] now as they will have taken on
well-ingrained false memories of things that didn’t happen. This case has been
a tragedy for the children.” Comments LJR What this case and those overseas
involving this sort of “Satanic Panic” all have in common, is that somewhere
in a position of power there is a fundamentalist Christian. Whether it be in
the police or social work area, somewhere there is someone whose professional
integrity has been overwhelmed by their indoctrination. This has led to many
miscarriages of justice and the Ellis case is one of them. chiz The final paragraph has a strange
almost hypothetical stance with its “they will have taken on false memories”
claim. In fact this is partly the case. As you may know at least one of the
‘victims’ has publicly recanted, but there are at least two ‘victims’,
according the chch Press, who still believe that Ellis did something to them.
Does Hayne not know about this? poneke Of course some of the Civic kids believe
Ellis did something to them. They have been told this by experts, by
counsellors, and their parents, since they were four or five years old.
Professor Hayne’s point is that they will now believe the false memories
impressed into their minds a decade and a half ago by what went on in the
investigation stage of this case are real. James Chiz, Of course Harlene Hayne knows
there are kids that haven’t recanted and still believe they were abused by
Ellis. She is correct to say that we will never know what really happened. As
Professor Stephen Ceci once said about the case: only two people know what
happened - Peter Ellis and God. The last think I heard, God isn’t telling,
and Ellis continues to maintain his innocence. Yes, one of the “victims” did
recant. But she was the oldest of all the kids and may have been sufficiently
developed to have been aware that she had been pressured into disclosing. But
the younger kids may not have been so developed, and adopted the information suggested
to them. That doesn’t mean they lied. In fact, it’s unlikely that they lied. Remember that one of the main
child witnesses, Tommy Bander, coincidentally one of the two former kids who
hasn’t recanted, had access to his evidential interviewes for several years
after the trial. If he had any doubts as to whether he was abused, he could
simply put one of five tapes into a VCR and watch himself disclosing abuse. checker Poneke, please check the veracity
of your statement that by her study Professor Harlene Hayne found that “The
evidential interviews of children during the Christchurch Civic Creche
investigation were much worse than those conducted in a similar American
daycare case that former chief justice Sir Thomas Eichelbam accepts was a
major miscarriage of justice.” I have seen a discussion indicating that this
statement is not fully accurate. We don’t want the blogosphere to get caught
up in accidentally perpetuating mistakes or distortions on this. ross francis December 19, 2007; 19:32 Poneke, I have to agree with checker. In
fact, I have just sent the editor of the NZPA the following message: “I note that on Tuesday NZPA
published a report about Dr Hayne’s research. There are some issues which I
have with this report. I should stress that I was present at Dr Hayne’s
presentation on the weekend and spoke with her afterwards. Your report, which appeared in the
ODT and elsewhere, said that questions put to the Christchurch children were
“much worse” than those put to children in the Kelly Michaels case. In fact,
Dr Hayne did not say they were worse, let alone much worse. Your report
notes, correctly, that the Ellis interviews were not “substantially better”
than the Michaels interviews. However, that is quite different from saying
that the former were much worse than the latter. I would understand if your
readers were left confused. You referred to Sir Thomas
Eichelbaum’s “2000 ruling” and said he declared the Ellis interviews were
“best practice”. I don’t believe the comment attributed to Sir Thomas is
correct. Eichelbaum acknowledged that best practice guidelines were not in
existence at the time of the Ellis investigation in 1992. He said, however,
that the interviewing was of a “high standard for its time”. This comment
appeared in his 2001 (not 2000) report. Last, you quote Dr Hayne as saying
that the children “will have taken on well-ingrained false memories of things
that didn’t happen”. I do not recall her making such a definitive comment,
and I cannot find such a comment in my notes. I do recall her saying that we
will never know what happened and that the memories of those children who
continue to believe they were abused may not be reliable. Dr Hayne presented her findings in
an even-handed manner. Your comments attributed to her suggest that that was
possibly not the case. I suspect that Dr Hayne would
agree with my comments. You have exaggerated what she said. She is continuing
to analyse the children’s evidential interviews. She may decide to withhold
her subsequent findings from the public, and media, if she believes she may
be misquoted or misreported again. That would be a shame. You could have
asked Dr Hayne to verify the comments that you attributed to her. I should note
that Judith Ablett Kerr, legal counsel for Peter Ellis, has been aware of Dr
Hayne’s findings for the past year. Mrs Ablett Kerr also could have been a
useful source of information. I note that some of the comments
in your report first appeared on a blog: http://www.poneke.wordpress.com It appears that you took these
comments at face value and did not try to verify or corroborate them. If so,
that was not what I would expect from the NZPA. You might wish to ask Dr Hayne for
her opinion as to whether comments have been misattributed to her, and allow
her to correct them. She is in the US at the moment, but you could try
emailing her. … Alternatively, you could speak with Maryanne Garry from
Victoria University. Maryanne attended Harlene’s presentation and knows all
about her research findings”. ross francis December 19, 2007; 19:53 I should stress that the vast
majority of your comments on this matter seem to be correct and I suspect
that Harlene Hayne would endorse them. I don’t want to be seen as casting
doubt on all of your comments. Most importantly, whether or not you accept my
comments, the fact remains that the Ellis interviews were poor by the
standards of the time, and Dr Hayne’s findings are the most significant
breakthrough since Eichelbaum’s ill-fated inquiry. poneke Just to be very clear, Professor
Hayne has assured me by email that both my blog account and the NZPA account
lifted from it accurately represented her presentation at the Innocence
Conference, which I attended. She has no issue with either the blog account
or the NZPA story. poneke And to make it even clearer, I
have sent the editor at NZPA the following: Good evening. You have apparently
been sent an email by a Ross Francis stating that there were errors in Cullen
Smith’s article on the Civic Creche of Monday. That article was lifted from
my blog http://poneke.wordpress.com
without attribution. However, I do assure you that my
article fully and fairly reported what Professor Hayne presented at the
Innocence Project conference and that she has confirmed this to me by email
from overseas. She also confirms that Cullen Smith’s article was correct. I am a professional journalist and
take what I do very seriously. My blog article was written no differently
than any of the thousands of news stories I have written for the mainstream
media over the past 20 years. Professor Hayne will happily
confirm the accuracy of my account if you email her. ross francis December 19, 2007; 20:38 “Professor Hayne will happily
confirm the accuracy of my account if you email her”. Well, I would like to see
confirmation from Professor Hayne that the Ellis interviews were “much worse”
than the Michaels interviews. I did not not tape Dr Hayne’s
comments, did you? Keri Hulme December 20, 2007; 00:50 As a writer who put their hand up
quite early in the piece (in support of Peter Ellis), I am intrigued that -
so far - no heat is being applied to Val Sim or Wendy Ball…let alone
Sas-diversion tactics anybody? Richard Christie December 20, 2007; 01:11 Wendy Ball now refuses to discuss
the matter; in 2004 I had to enlist the assistance of the office of the Vice
Chancellor (Waikato) of in order to get her to answer questions about the
content of her 1997 paper in Ontario. Apparently the paper is held in the
Waikato University library (desk copy), a fact that she subsequently
overlooked revealing to me. At least the University is aware of its charter
obligations. ross francis December 20, 2007; 06:25 Keri, Val Sim and Wendy Ball refuse to
answer questions on the case. That highlights the intellectual vacuum that
has arisen in respect of this case. I suspect that Sim and Ball, among others
involved with the case, know that Peter Ellis was wrongly convicted but do
not have the moral courage to say so. I suspect that is why there is so much
resistance to a Commission of Inquiry being set up: people like Sim and Ball
probably understand that such an inquiry is likely to rule in Ellis’ favour.
People will then be left scratching their heads, saying “why did it take X
number of years to achieve justice and who was behind the delay?” |
