The Christchurch Civic Crèche Case |
|
|
|
A City Possessed: Well, did he do it . . . or not? And if he didn't, how
come all those court appeals and inquiries haven't cleared him? These are the questions people are most likely to ask of
anyone who has ploughed through Lynley Hood's massive research tome about New
Zealand's most notorious child sex abuse case, Peter Ellis and the
Christchurch creche kids. And the answers? While uncertainty still exists as to
whether the pendulum of public belief has righted itself on the subject of
paedophilia, a wise answer is also an equivocal and politically correct one:
Hood proves there is reasonable doubt that Ellis was guilty beyond reasonable
doubt. In a strange way, that's not even the main point of the
book's 672 painstakingly referenced pages. There are other, more salient
ones: ·
New Zealand (especially Christchurch) was gripped by moral
panic in the latter part of last century. ·
The judiciary is complacent. ·
Amended laws governing how courts may treat the evidence
of children and expert witnesses are flawed. ·
Innocent families have been damaged for no justifiable
reason. ·
Politicians are self-serving. ·
The judgment of some police is warped by homophobia and
religious fundamentalism. ·
Government and local government bureaucracies are
self-serving. ·
The rights of New Zealanders are occasionally threatened
by feminist- lesbian ideology. ·
Biased, superficial and pre-emptive media reporting is a
factor in denying defendants a fair trial.
The Court of Appeal threatened to throw her in jail; she
had to shut herself off from friends who wanted to know what her seven-year
investigation had turned up; she was betrayed by lawyers acting for Ellis who
used her in an attempt to get new evidence for their appeal; and publishers
gave her the run-around and threatened to sue.
"But Sir Thomas Eichelbaum's inquiry was both narrow
and flawed," she writes on the second-to-last page of her text.
"His terms of reference (set by Justice Minister Phil Goff, who said
recently he has no plans to read Hood's book and considers the case closed)
failed to address many issues of public concern (such as the soundness of the
decision to arrest the women (Ellis' fellow creche workers), the sanitising
of the charges against Peter Ellis (the prosecution carefully weeded out a
number of original charges that looked far-fetched), and the fairness of his
trial). "In his inquiry, Sir Thomas failed to carry out
reality checks on the children's evidence (for example, whether it was
actually possible for the offences to have been committed, given the open
layout of the creche building). "He failed to
take seriously evidence showing that the children's statements had been
obtained by pressure and manipulation (for example, none of the children
disclosed abuse without a series of arduous interviews, some of which
involved leading questions, dolls, suggestions by the interviewers, refusal
to take no for an answer, refusal to agree to repeated requests from the
child to stop; for some it took four such attempts before the child agreed
anything happened). "He failed to consider the role of the police (some of
whom later professed strong religious and homophobic convictions, and belief
in a pervading myth about a child porn ring that was investigated in
Christchurch but never found; a policeman who led much of the initial inquiry
later admitted having affairs with some complainant mothers and
propositioning another). "He failed to consider the likely effect on the jury
of controversial evidence given by the Crown's expert witness (Dr Karen
Zelas, who had established a strong credibility with judges, but whose
credentials and involvement with the investigation of the allegations Hood
questions). "He failed to consider the effect of controversial
laws relating to children's evidence on the investigation and prosecution of
the case (changes to the law governing evidence had been successfully lobbied
for and achieved by the sex abuse industry; in effect, the usual stringency
regarding admissible evidence and the handling of witnesses was dispensed
with in the interests of prosecuting sex abuse cases). "He failed to mention (and apparently disregarded)
the evidence of the child who retracted her allegations (this complainant was
the eldest of the children and the prosecution's best witness in court, hence
they led with her; she later said her evidence against Ellis was all lies and
has never wavered from that stance). "In his conclusions, he failed to acknowledge that
one of his own experts had serious reservations about the children's evidence
(Hood also discredits the second "expert" Sir Thomas relied on for
advice)." Hood traces the judicial process with meticulous detail
and rigorous referencing, from the beginning of the case to the depositions
hearing, the trial itself and subsequent Court of Appeal hearings and
applications for a pardon for Ellis. Could they all be wrong, these prosecuting lawyers and
judges? She believes so, and concludes: ". . . the New Zealand justice
system has trouble recognising and correcting its own mistakes. While the
complacency and defensiveness of the people involved may be part of the
problem, a close examination of the safety net reveals holes in its basic
structure big enough to let most miscarriages of justice drop through
unnoticed." In analysing the Court of Appeal's approach to Ellis, she
said the cause was largely lost before the hearings began because the court
had ". . . long since abdicated its responsibility when it came to
assessing the believability of children's evidence in sexual abuse
cases." Through some of its previous rulings, the court ". .
. effectively gave its stamp of approval to the ideological coup d'etat that
had wrenched control of the investigation and prosecution of child sexual
abuse away from the relatively objective justice system, and placed it in the
hands of the clearly partisan child protection movement. "Consequently, when the high-profile Ellis case came
along, the Court was faced with a stark choice: It could reconsider its own
earlier decisions (and thereby bring the opprobrium of the child protection
movement crashing about its ears); or it could ignore the controversy (and
hope that it would go away)." No prizes for guessing which way their Honours went. Incidentally, Hood is fearless in laying blame for changes
to the evidence rules that partially led to this state of affairs. She names
none other than former Prime Minister and Justice Minister Sir Geoffrey
Palmer as the politician who introduced the "reforming" legislation
". . . late at night, under urgency, on what was expected to be the last
sitting day before Parliament broke for Christmas (1988)".
To demonstrate the effects these law changes had on the
Ellis case, Hood takes us through parts of the evidence in the trial and
links it to key parts of the pre-trial interviews done with the children. She
also traces police efforts to find trapdoors, tunnels, cages, child
pornography and ritual abuse paraphernalia (none of which was discovered).
Anyone who recalls the media coverage of the trial in 1993 will have his or
her memory jogged by some of the bizarre things that were being claimed (and
apparently believed): "According to Ms Dogwood (pseudonym for one of the
complainant parents), Bart said he was hung in a cage and had to kill animals
and a little boy called Andrew in the hall on the second floor. Andrew was in
a coffin, and Bart stabbed him with a knife in front of adults and children.
Bart also said that Peter took him into the roof, and they came down a rope
through a trapdoor in the ceiling." It was evidence of this kind that convicted Ellis, since
nobody ever found anything concrete to prove that something untoward
happened. There was no physical evidence of abuse, no photographs, no
instruments, no adult eye witnesses (such as fellow creche workers or
parents), few if any opportunities or suitable places for committing the
alleged offences. And on, and on. Nothing appears to have been left unsifted
by Hood. She spends a large part of the book outlining the social phenomena
that converged to create the Ellis witch hunt: A feminist movement that was
running out of steam; adult rape statistics that weren't living up to the
emotive claims of the feminist-lesbian lobby; a Christian fundamentalist
minority whose Patricia Bartlett-led fears of Sodom and Gomorrah were now
ridiculed; spectacular (but often later discredited) ritual abuse discoveries
overseas; and an emerging child sex abuse counselling paradigm, which among
other things saw ACC handing out up to $10,000 a time to people who didn't
have to prove beyond reasonable legal doubt that they or theirs had suffered
sexual abuse. While the Ellis case involved 18 complainant families, in the
end 40 families claimed such pay-outs. And there was Christchurch. A city possessed by rumours of
ritual abuse and child porn operations that persisted despite thorough but
unsuccessful police probes. And then there was Peter Ellis. A blatantly gay man who
worked in the wrong place to indulge his risque approach to life. The fact
that most of the kids seemed to love him and his unorthodox approach to play
and fun was, in the end, beside the point. As Hood implies, he was a
scapegoat waiting for the chop. Hood shows above all else in this prodigious work that
rumour in any community is a dangerous precursor to the breakdown of justice
and democracy. In a paradoxical twist near the end of her inquiry, she was
caught in the mill herself when it was said a juror from the trial later
confided in her that he was sexually attracted to one of the child complainants.
Hood went to considerable lengths to avoid commenting on
this, even to the brink of going to jail when the Court of Appeal demanded
audio tapes of her conversation with the juror. She finally agreed, but only
if the tapes were heard by one judge. He reported later they showed no such
thing. Lest anyone think Hood's book is the last word on this
unfortunate saga, remember Ellis's stance that he will fight forever to clear
his name. And while the sex abuse counselling community seems quite mute, and
complainant parents have said little, there are stirrings in the legal
fraternity that something further should be done. Many people reading Lynley Hood's findings will be
inclined to agree. |