The Christchurch Civic Crèche Case |
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A City Possessed: In an earlier age. Arthur Allan Thomas would have been
hanged. For David Bain, perhaps the final solution would have been a “more
humane” injection. But for Peter Ellis, convicted of child abuse, a gothic response
served society well over the centuries: burning at the stake. As our
celebrated crimes get more gruesome, it’s tempting for all of us to want a
simple resolution. But if ever a case proved that life is never
straightforward, it’s the Christchurch Civic Creche tragedy. The case is tragic because, apart from Ellis, hundreds of
lives were damaged, families broken up, careers ruined. Yet still there’s a
nagging doubt that the accusations were fantasy, a product of fevered
imaginations fed by prejudice and zealotry. Lynley Hood has left no stone unturned in her 672-page
examination of the Civic Creche saga, A
City Possessed (Longacre, $59.95), that took her seven years to write.
The title reflects the conclusion she draws: that a “moral panic” took place
within elements of Christchurch society, driven by madcap political fashions,
homophobia or old-fashioned Puritanism. Legitimate concerns of crèche
parents, government and welfare agencies, plus the police and judiciary made
an unhealthy combination with the swift social changes of the 1980s. The child abuse “industry” had emerged, much of it driven
by militant feminism, psychobabble and, suggests Hood, the easy $10,000 then
offered by the ACC for damage caused. After an intense debate, homosexuality
had been legalised – leaving fear and urban myths festering in the community. Peter Ellis’ overt lifestyle (“caution was not one of his
strengths”) was a magnet for anxious parents, particularly the possibly
unstable one who set the ball rolling (the child was taken to another crèche,
where another gay worker was then accused of abuse). Hood, the biographer of two other misfits – educationalist
Sylvia Ashton Warner and “baby farmer” Minnie Dean – has collated her
extraordinary research into a compellingly readable legal epic. The tone is
calmly partisan; she takes 200 pages to explain the background that made
Ellis’ employment at the crèche a ticking “Doomsday clock”. A recent
paedophile case, a “worthy” radio series on child abuse and recovered memory,
plus the obsessive Ritual Abuse Group all helped push the hands to midnight. Then, frenzy set in, with vulnerable children being
harangued by leading questions, and gossip mongering contaminating evidence. Hood
argues that this alleged epidemic of child abuse is likely to be an epidemic
of rumour. Which points to the other tragedy of the Civic Creche saga: it
undermined child abuse as an urgent social challenge. |