The Christchurch Civic Creche Case


News Reports - Home


2007 Index

 





http://www.stuff.co.nz/4332803a11.html

 

Stuff
December 21 2007

Doubts on child interviews may fuel appeal
NZPA

Fresh doubts about evidential interviews of children in the 1993 Peter Ellis sex abuse case will be used to try to secure legal aid funding for his appeal to the Privy Council.

Ellis' lawyer, Dunedin QC Judith Ablett Kerr, is seeking a meeting with new Justice Minister Annette King early in the new year in her bid to take his case to the London law lords in one of the last New Zealand appeals they are likely to hear.

The right for New Zealanders to appeal to the Privy Council was abolished from January 1, 2004, with the establishment of the Supreme Court. But appeals can still be made in cases where the Court of Appeal made its final judgment or decision before that date.

Research findings by Otago University academic Professor Harlene Hayne (crrct), head of the psychology department, suggest there is a "strong risk" that the evidence of children who told of sexual abuse by Ellis was contaminated by the way the interviews were carried out.

She urged the courts to consider the case again.

Ellis, convicted in 1993 of 13 charges of sexually abusing children while he was working at the Christchurch Civic Childcare Centre, has always protested his innocence and is fighting to clear his name.

After Ellis' High Court trial and two failed Appeals Court hearings, a ministerial inquiry conducted by former Chief Justice Sir Thomas Eichelbaum in 2000 found that the interviewing of children who gave evidence at trial was appropriate and hadn't been undermined or contaminated by others.

But after analysing hundreds of pages of verbatim transcripts of the pre-trial interviews with the very young children involved in the Christchurch creche case and comparing them with a very similar American case Prof Haynes has taken issue with Sir Thomas' conclusions.

She found the Christchurch children were each subjected to an average 400 questions by Social Welfare department specialist staff, compared with an average 200 questions in the American case.

New Jersey daycare worker Kelly Michaels, aged 23 when she was arrested in 1985, was convicted of 115 counts of child sexual abuse and jailed for 47 years.

But she was released on appeal after five years when the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled the children's interviews were "highly improper" with interviewers using "coercive and unduly suggestive methods".

Prof Hayne told the recent Innocence Project conference in Wellington her analysis pointed to a "strong risk" the children's evidence in the Ellis case was contaminated by the way the interviews were done.

Mrs Ablett Kerr today hailed the Hayne report as a further positive move in Ellis' bid to clear his name.

"The research that they've done is excellent," she said today. "It reinforces what it was that we were telling the Court of Appeal in 1999."

Mrs Ablett Kerr said Ellis' appeal to the London law lords was stalled by a lack of funds.

She and her small legal team have been working for Ellis on a pro bono basis and her office was "wall to wall with Ellis material".

Ellis, unfortunately did not have a financial backer such as Joe Karam, who financed David Bain's successful appeal that led to the law lords quashing his 1995 convictions for murdering his parents, two sisters and a brother in Dunedin.

"There is an awful lot of work involved in a petition to the Privy Council," she said.

"Here we are at the end of the day in a good strong position to take it (to London) and yet we don't have the financial resources to put (the petition) into the kind of shape the Privy Council wants."

A parliamentary select committee in 2005 recommended the Attorney-General not oppose a Privy Council bid by Ellis.

Mrs Ablett Kerr said Ellis could be eligible for legal aid to cover the substantial costs of getting a petition to London if the Solicitor-General made such a recommendation to the Attorney-General.

She said her next step was to seek a meeting with the new Minister of Justice early in the new year.

"I'd like to take Harlene Hayne's new material to the minister and talk to her about how we can advance things. It's in the interests of the integrity of the criminal justice system in this country," Mrs Ablett Kerr said.

"Something needs to be done."

She said she and Ellis had been buoyed by the latest revelations which reinforced their Appeal Court arguments, but frustrated that after eight years there had been no real progress.

"If we were on the right track in 1999, why are we not there now in 2007?"