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Poneke’s Weblog Movement at last in the Peter Ellis case: At last, movement in the Peter Ellis
case, the worst miscarriage of justice in New Zealand since Arthur Alan
Thomas. Following the damning scientific research by Otago University
professor of psychology Harlene Hayne that revealed the extent of the flaws
in the interviews of the Christchurch Civic Creche children (first reported
by this blog), Ellis’s lawyer, Judith Ablett Kerr, QC, has asked to see
Justice Minister Annette King about having a royal commission of inquiry into
the case. Annette King’s office has said she
would delegate the decision to an associate minister because she is also
police minister. The three associate justice ministers are Rick Barker,
Clayton Cosgrove and Lianne Dalziel. I expect the latter would recuse herself
from any involvement, because she has close friends who were part of the
original case. Ablett Kerr was interviewed by
Mary Wilson on Checkpoint last night. This is the transcript: 7 Comments Cobber Found on another Peter Ellis Case
discussion group the following: There’s two interesting points
from JAK’s interview on RNZ yesterday. First, she correctly implies that
opinions can be fickle. But then she highlights the fact that Prof Hayne’s
analysis is not based on opinion but on fact. So even if we discount the
opinions of Ceci, Lamb, Parsonson, etc, Hayne’s findings cannot be dismissed
so easily. Furthermore, her findings should be able to be replicated by other
researchers, even if the definion of direct open and direct closed questions
may differ slightly. The second point - which has not
been discussed previously - is that Hayne’s findings were given to JAK in
2006 (late 2006 I presume). What has JAK been doing with these findings since
then? In other words, why has she waited until Jan 2008 to go to the Justice Minister?
It’s almost as if she was waiting for Hayne to release the findings before
going to the Minister. (But Hayne didn’t officially release her findings
publicly - that was done by Poneke and then the media got hold of the story.)
Anyone else find that odd? Maybe JAK’s position would have ben different if
Peter had been in prison but I still find it curious that JAK appears to have
been sitting on Hayne’s research for a long time. ———————————- A nice roundup of media issues re
Ellis can be found here: https://www.peterellis.co.nz/2008/index.htm Cobber Poneke, is there an explanation
for this curious sentence from a report in today’s “Press” I found at https://www.peterellis.co.nz/2008/2008-0130_the_press_govt_mulls.htm?
What would a “complication” over a couple of local MPs be, for goodness sake? The Press Govt mulls royal inquiry for Ellis The situation was complicated by
the fact that two of the associate justice ministers, Lianne Dalziel and
Clayton Cosgrove, were Christchurch MPs. That could leave the task to Labour
list MP and Associate Justice Minister Rick Barker. poneke Lianne would recuse herself, as
she knows some of the families. I know of no association Clayton has with the
case. Ross Francis I find it bizarre that the Press
would raise Dalziel’s and Cosgrove’s status as Christchurch MPs. How is it
relevant? Tim Barnett was (and still is) a Christchurch MP when he chaired
the justice and electoral select committee which, in 2005, rejected
petitioners’ calls for a commission of inquiry into the Ellis case. However,
I am certain the former had no effect on the latter. I would also have thought that if
the decision to set up a Royal commission of inquiry is made, it will be done
so by Cabinet and not the Minister of Justice. Just a quick correction to a
comment from Mrs Ablett Kerr, lest readers become confused. She referred to
14,919 questions. I don’t believe this is correct. Prof Hayne counted 14,919
questions AND statements. The majority of the interviewers’ utterances were
statements, not questions. This is of course consistent with her conclusion
that each of the 13 kids was asked about 400 questions each (a total of 5,200
questions). poneke You’re obsessed with semantics.
Professor Hayne called them questions. From my account of her research,
which she has confirmed as accurate: 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. Ross Francis “You’re obsessed with semantics”. No, I am interested in the facts.
Since when have statements morphed into questions? The majority of the
utterances from the evidential interviewers were statements. Moz I won’t comment on KiwiBlog but
it’s always ineterested me that the women who were involved were released or
acquitted, but the man was not. At the time it seemed that most of what was
reported as “evidence” was fairly fanciful, and there was some research at
the time to suggest that the case was unsound (the UK satanic abuse cases
were collapsing at that time). I read a book (probably “SUFFER THE LITTLE
CHILDREN”) that scared me a lot, especially when I later met Ann-Marie Stapp
(one of the social workers involved in bringing the case) and she came across
as quite unhinged. She copped quite a bollocking online at the time (FWIW, I
met her in person and can confirm that it was actually her at least some of
the time). Google Groups/Dejanews is quite informative in that regard). |
