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The Christchurch Civic
Creche Case |
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Judith Ablett Kerr Christchurch: 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 University of
Otago academic Prof Harlene Hayne, the 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 had not 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 Hayne has taken issue with Sir Thomas’
conclusions. She found the Christchurch
children were each subjected to an average of 400 questions by Social Welfare
department specialist staff, compared with an average of 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 yesterday 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. "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 had
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?" |
