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The Christchurch Civic
Creche Case |
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Conclusions, Recommendations ► Next |
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1. To this date the Petitioner has argued
for a pardon followed by an inquiry rather than a quashing of his convictions
by the Court. That preference was indicated in his first petition, but is put
much more emphatically in the second, which asserts that "The Criminal Justice System is Unable to Accommodate Your
Petitioner's Case", and the Court of Appeal an inappropriate body to
determine it. That petition also contends that financial and resource
constraints have prevented the Petitioner from doing more than raise issues
for further consideration, and argues that the work needed to take those
issues further can only be done by a Commission of Inquiry with wide terms of
reference To promote that claim it was sufficient, and perhaps more
effective, to give a higher priority to accumulating matters for
investigation than to establishing their individual or collective
significance. It may also have appeared to the Petitioner and his advisers
that, while his claim for a pardon without any further proceedings remains at
large, action by them which facilitates a hearing by the Court could derogate
from and prejudice that claim. Certainly, whether or not for that reason, the
Petitioner has not kept up with the timetable settled by the Court of Appeal
to ensure that a hearing of the reference would commence on 31 May 1999. That
slippage, in combination with the proposed widening of the reference, makes
further substantial delay a certainty unless steps are taken now to avoid
that result. 2. Although other issues may attain major
significance those of greatest concern on the material so far provided, "the central issues", are - ·
The claims of defective
interviewing techniques and of failure to assess or minimise the risk of
"contamination" of the children's evidence (see part
4.2); and ·
The claim that the exclusion of
evidence of allegations by complainant children which were not the subject of
charges before the jury deprived it of evidence necessary to a proper
assessment of the children's reliability (see part 4.4). Not only
are those clearly "central" issues, they are also those where an
evidentiary basis has been most nearly attained. They are not simple issues.
But if the opinions of Dr Parsonson (which are the cornerstone of these
complaints) and the Ceci/Wood claim that creche/kindergarten cases involve
special hazards, prove to have general support, it would in my view be
difficult to argue against the existence of a serious doubt about the safety of the Petitioner's convictions. If
that view is correct, the shortest route to a soundly based resolution of the
Petitioner's position is likely to be by evaluating those opinions. Part 4.2 discusses how that might be done. It suggests that
if the advisers to the Petitioner and the Crown co-operate in obtaining and
exchanging opinions from suitably qualified persons the matter should, if not
resolved by agreement, be sufficiently advanced to put before the Court on 3
1 May 3. Part 6.7 considers
the difficulties involved in proceeding in the near future with a hearing of all
the issues proposed to be referred, and suggests consideration of a hearing
limited in the first instance to a few central issues. That procedure
would be more likely to succeed if the parties agreed upon the issues to be
considered and went back to the Court with a programme for its consideration. 4. As this opinion was being signed off I
received from the Ministry copies of two faxes from the Petitioner's advisers
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Forwarding an opinion from Dr Lamb
supporting the Parsonson opinion, and offering to supply other opinions when
they are received subject to financial constraints; and ·
Asking that I obtain additional
records from the police about the conduct and emotional stability of two of
the officers involved in the creche inquiry. As noted
in Part 2.8 my brief is to give an opinion on the
papers, not to conduct an investigation. But that apart, the character and
emotional health of the investigating officers must be of less significance
than the quality of the evidence they collected. The further opinion now
received supports the case for giving priority of attention to the central
issues rather than extending the scope of the inquiry. 5. Matters of Public Interest Incidentally
Arising While the
matters on which my opinion has been sought relate wholly to the Petitioner's
claims that he has been wrongly convicted, his petitions raise questions of a
wider significance about the appropriateness of the codes which currently
govern the obtaining and presentation of the evidence of young children in
this country. |
