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The |
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The Christchurch Civic Creche case
began in November 1991 with the ambiguous comment of a three-year-old boy. He
was.interviewed by CYFS and disclosed nothing. But, like a careless match tossed
into the tinder-dry landscape of a The kids said they liked the
creche, they liked the staff. Experts warned parents that abused children
could be threatened into silence; they had to disclose and be treated or they
may never recover. Anxious parents read books to their children about secret
(or yukky, or bad) touching. They told them it was safe to tell. They asked
them about Peter Ellis, bottoms, poos, wees, vaginas and penises. Finally, after two months of
parental interrogation, the kids started talking dirty. In the course of the
investigation, more than 100 children were interviewed by CYFS, some as many
as six times. On the basis of those interviews, creche worker Peter Ellis and
four of his women colleagues were arrested on a total of 60 charges of sexual
offending against 20 children. The women were discharged
pre-trial. Peter Ellis was convicted on 16 counts of abusing seven children.
There was no physical evidence, there were no adult eye witnesses. He was
convicted solely on the testimony of seven young children. Later, the oldest and most
credible of the child witnesses retracted her allegations. She said she had
lied about indecent touching and forced contact with Ellis’ penis because she
thought that was what her mother and the interviewer wanted her to say. The six remaining children (now
young adults) that Ellis was convicted of abusing recorded a total of 22 interviews.
Of those 22 videotapes, the jury viewed 12 in full. Excerpts from a
thirteenth videotape were also played. The other nine videotapes recorded by
those children were not played to the jury at all. Here are unedited excerpts from
transcript of some of the videotapes recorded with those key complainant
children. Some of these videotapes were seen by the jury, some were not. For
legal reasons, children’s names and other identifying details have been
changed or deleted. In B’s first interview, the interviewer
took care to ensure the boy was relaxed and comfortable. She made him promise
to tell the truth. She gave him every opportunity to indicate whether he had
been abused by Peter Ellis and, if so, in what way. She also gave him every
opportunity to indicate whether other adults and children were involved All B could come up with was a
memory of Ellis cleaning him up on the creche changing table. The contrast
between that story and the bizarre allegations in his later interviews
(recorded after months of parental questioning and sexual abuse therapy) is
extraordinary. But because the jury had no
transcript of B’s first interview and saw only two excerpts of the videotape,
the potential impact of that contrast was much reduced. |
