Goff wrong to reject petition on Ellis

The New Zealand Herald. 30 June 2003

Your editorial on Saturday, backing the Minister of Justice in his refusal to establish a Royal Commission of Inquiry into all aspects of the Christchurch Civic Crèche case, is misguided.

In this case, the judicial system has failed, and failed badly.  It convicted Peter Ellis on the evidence of very young children in the complete absence of corroborating evidence and despite the great majority of the parents with children at the crèche finding nothing inappropriate in Peter Ellis’s behaviour.  Until there is a full inquiry by an independent judge from outside the New Zealand jurisdiction, this case won’t go away.

When Sir Thomas Eichelbaum was asked to review the case by Phil Goff in 2000, his terms of reference were narrow and flawed.   In the course of his inquiry, he talked to some of the families who had complained and to the Commissioner for Children.  But he failed to speak to any non-complainant families (who were the overwhelming majority of crèche parents).  He did not speak to the crèche staff.  He did not speak to Peter Ellis himself.  He did not speak to the family whose child retracted her allegations, despite the fact that this child was the oldest and most credible of the Crown’s witnesses.   She later confess that she had lied about Peter Ellis because she thought that that was what her mother and the interviewer wanted her to say.  Sir Thomas did not talk to that child.

Mr Goff has said that Sir Thomas was assisted by two pre-eminent international experts.  But only one of the experts – Professor Graham Davies of Leicester University – was a recognised mainstream expert.  The other, Dr Louise Sas of London, Ontario, was not.  Dr Sas believed that small children could be ritually abused in day care centres on a massive scale without anybody noticing.  Her alleged expertise was based primarily on her involvement in some of the biggest ritual abuse panics in North America.

Mr Goff claims that both experts supported Sir Thomas Eichelbaum’s conclusions.  This is simply not true.  Professor Davies’ report does not support Sir Thomas’s conclusions.

If I were to pick on just one point that really shows up the justice system’s failures in general, and Sir Thomas’s failures in particular, it is this: in the course of her fourth videotaped interview, a child alleged that Peter Ellis took her to his house where a man named Joseph teased her with his penis.  On the basis of that allegation, Ellis was charged with being party to an offence committed by an unknown man, at an unknown place, at an unknown time and date.  The jury found him guilty on that charge.  The jury’s verdict was upheld by two court of appeal hearings in front of a total of seven judges, and by Sir Thomas Eichelbaum.  Sir Thomas said that he and his experts had no doubts about the reliability of the children’s evidence.

But Professor Davies did have doubts.  “There is nothing in this interview that convinces me that this child visited Peter’s house or was assaulted by a man named Joseph,” he wrote.  In fact, Professor Davies had doubts about all the allegations about unidentified people at unidentified places outside the crèche.  And as for the less bizarre allegations that were said to have taken place at the crèche, Professor Davies advised Sir Thomas to do reality checks to see whether, in terms of the layout of the centre and the way it functioned, these offences could ever have happened.  But Sir Thomas did not do reality checks.

And yet, Sir Thomas Eichelbaum concluded, without reservation or qualification, the Peter Ellis’s guilt had been proved beyond reasonable doubt.

Now, a large number of New Zealanders have said it is time to look again at this whole case.   Yes, some of them may have been driven by rumour and emotion.  But the petition was signed by a retired High Court judge, by nine Queens Counsel, by nine professors of law, by 26 Members of Parliament (from every party in Parliament), by two former Prime Ministers, by professors of psychology.  Most were not driven by rumour or emotion but by a genuine belief that in this case the justice system has failed.

 

The Minister of Justice clearly has the constitutional authority to instruct the Governor General to establish a Royal Commission of Inquiry.  He could do it tomorrow.  You don’t need new evidence to establish a Commission of Inquiry.  You don’t need the permission of the judiciary.  All you need is moral courage and political will.  As Edmund Burke once said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

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Copyright © 2024 Don Brash.