Lynley Hood in her
1 October 2001-released A City Possessed has drawn the attention
of the thoughtful to the Christchurch Civic case and its background.
In New Zealand, the book has been on the best-seller list several times
since publication, and seems to be being widely read.
The Christchurch
Public Library catalogue when visited recently listed 40 copies, and
of those which were not shelf copies, all not only were out, but also
were listed as being either 'Reserved', or as reserved and 'Full' as
well.
Reviewers describe
it as an exemplary, important study. The book reflects a monumental
amount of work, and for her efforts, skill, and considerable achievement
in writing it and having it published, after difficulties, Lynley Hood
is to be congratulated. Peter Ellis said about it "the book looks like
a royal commission of inquiry that cost Government nothing".
Justice Minister
Phil Goff has said he's not going to read the book. Hard-line 'believers'
presaged this sort of reaction when they said earlier that the case
should be left alone and the children allowed to get on with their lives.
Former Civic children who gave evidence etc. might handle the matter
this way, but thinking adults are in an entirely different position.
It remains for some
diehards - advocates, authorities, and institutions that have been resistant
to changing their beliefs - to catch up. In this regard, Professor Mark
Henaghan, Dean of Law at the University of Otago, says he is going to
collect the reviews, especially those from professionals, and send them
to Justice Minister Goff, with recommendations about what should be
done.
Reviews
of A City
Possessed: Christchurch Civic Creche Case; Child Abuse, Gender
Politics and the Law by
Lynley Hood
(Longacre
Press)
The following
excerpts from reviews are reproduced for educational purposes and not
for profit
From
Christchurch's The Press 3 Nov 2001, "Escape" section, 'Books', p 20:
Review
by Cynthia Hawes, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Canterbury
In November 1991,
while sitting in his bath, a three-year-old Christchurch boy made the
now famous remark to his mother: "I don't like Peter's black penis."
That statement was the beginning of the downfall of Peter Hugh McGregor
Ellis, who was sentenced in 1993 to 10 years in prison for a number
of sexual offences against children who had attended the Christchurch
Civic Creche, where he had worked for more than five years. �
[Ten years into
the ensuing public controversy and the disquiet over the correctness
of the verdicts] Lynley Hood's entry into the fray with her well-written
and closely researched book is a brave stand for the application of
objectivity and rationality, qualities which she considers to have been
seriously lacking during the investigation and trial of Peter Ellis.
She approaches her analysis from two points of view, the first being
the broad social and historical background to the case, and the second
being the close scrutiny of the course of events and procedures relating
to the case itself.
The social and political
atmosphere at the time made it inevitable, the author argues, that sooner
or later someone would suffer the fate of Peter Ellis. A moral panic
concerning sexual abuse of children, possibly with associated satanic
rituals, had been well established in New Zealand during the two decades
preceding the Peter Ellis case. A number of factors contributed to the
widely held belief that such practices were widespread.
Significant among
these was the extreme "all men are rapists" fringe of the feminist movement,
which saw women and children as victims of the patriarchy and in consequence
demonised men. The rise of the sexual abuse industry was a strong contributing
factor. A wave of counsellors, social workers, and therapists with varying
degrees of expertise promulgated specious statistics about sexual abuse.
Although there were no recorded cases of satanic or ritual abuse, they
encouraged the view, until it became axiomatic, that such practices
existed throughout all sectors of society.
Fuel was added by
literature and seminars provided by "experts", both from within New
Zealand and overseas. As a result, parents and other agencies developed
disproportionate and unrealistic concerns about child sexual abuse.
The liberal provision of lump-sum payments by ACC to alleged sexual
abuse victims also played a part.
All these ingredients
found their way into the crucible that was Christchurch in 1991, and,
inevitably and inexorably, the potent brew produced a result. Many of
the parents were themselves involved in the sexual abuse industry and
had discussed sexual abuse with their children and provided them with
books on the subject. In this context, the likelihood of a complaint
was, as the author describes it, "poised, like the hands on the Doomsday
Clock, at a few minutes before midnight".
The Crown case was
based upon information, or "disclosures", made by creche children. No
child ever complained of sexual molestation of any kind by Peter Ellis
while at the creche and no signs of injuries were observed by parents.
It was only after the "black penis" comment had been made, and alarmed
parents had discussed the matter among themselves and with their children,
that formal interviews were undertaken.
Many of the children
were subjected to repeated interviews despite their initially denying
any wrongdoing by Peter Ellis. The description of interviewing techniques
includes examples of the persistent and leading questioning which was
employed. Disclosures took place amid widespread speculation and rumour
which had established in the minds of the children that Peter Ellis
was a bad man.
Four of his women
colleagues were also charged as a result of this questioning process.
By the time a preliminary hearing had determined that there was insufficient
evidence to try them, they had suffered profoundly.
The author examines
in detail the depositions and trial of Peter Ellis, including the judge's
pre-trial rulings and the presentation of the evidence, both of which
she considers unfairly prejudiced Peter Ellis. The videotape interviews
of the children had contained allegations which were inherently incredible
or demonstrably false, involving such lurid features as fire, ovens,
cages, axes, and killings. The charges laid excluded this improbable
material and the jury saw little of it. Had these fantastic allegations
been presented as a whole, the jury would have received a broader picture
of the contaminated circumstances of the disclosures, and the evidence
which was in fact presented would have been weakened.
It was not asserted
at the trial that the children were liars, and Lynley Hood makes no
such suggestion. Rather, her thesis is that the children, all of whom
had been preschoolers while at the creche, had been interrogated months
or years later by questioners intent on finding evil-doing by Peter
Ellis; and they were thereby drawn into the area where fact and fiction
became indistinguishable in their minds.
Lynley Hood looks
behind the mantra of "believe the child" and accepts that the children
may well have attempted to be truthful. However, the background of panic
and the indoctrination of the children were such that it was inevitable
that they would ultimately say what the questioner wanted to hear.
Lynley Hood's book
is detailed, scholarly, and well researched. For those readers who have
harboured doubts about the Ellis case, the book will provide further
cogent support for their opinions; for others it may well induce revision
of previously held views.
The book will perhaps
provide impetus for the undertaking of political action to right the
apparent wrong done to Peter Ellis. In matters involving human judgment,
perfection is unattainable and mistakes are inevitable.
However, it is an
embarrassment for the legal profession that it has taken the efforts
of a person who is not one of them to examine and expose the flaws of
the Peter Ellis case in such a book. Lynley Hood is to be congratulated.
~
Mike
Behrens QC in the Manawatu's Evening Standard (Palmerston
North, 19/10/01 p 14) gave a very favourable review to A City Possessed,
saying that Hood showed "the country had been caught by ritual abuse
panic". He said he was devastated by the book, which:
� certainly
laid waste law makers, sexual abuse professionals, child protection
workers, policemen, lawyers, judges, parents and any image we might
have of ourselves as a thinking, caring culture immune from nonsense.
He wrote:
[Peter
Ellis's] 10-year sentence for crimes against children has finished
but still the law writhes and wrestles with the problem of his innocence.
The law has finished with his four co-workers, who, for a comparatively
short time stood in the dock too, before being condemned by, our version
of "not proven" and punished accordingly with the loss of just about
everything, including for one, a life.
He emphasizes Hood's
logic and scholarship:
� if
anyone picks up her book expecting to find emotional force for the
view that the incidence of child abuse is exaggerated or even invented
they will be confounded. Her colours are on the mast for all to see
but the nails are driven in with logic and scholarship.
In one place he
scoped the problem thus:
A jury,
8 judges � and a ministerial inquiry � have considered a case against
Ellis [but] � [s]ome bizarre legal rulings have ensured the case about
him has never been examined. Those who believe the adversarial system
is the bee's knees must be discomforted by the explanation of how
it was the jury did not see all the evidential tapes made by the child
complainants �
Ian
Freckelton, a Barrister, of Melbourne, reviewed the book in
almost entirely very favourable terms in The New Zealand Law Journal
of October 2001(pp 359-361). His final paragraph is as follows:
Hood's
contribution to understanding of the complexities of investigation
into sexual abuse, in particular ritual sexual abuse allegations,
is substantial. A City Possessed is a gripping and controversial
analysis of a legal and social phenomenon that has the potential to
confront all of us. The challenge left to us is what can be done to
ensure that the errors made and the human trauma caused by the Christchurch
Creche controversy will not be repeated. A City Possessed should
be compulsory reading for lawyers in the criminal and family law areas,
child protection workers and mental health professionals. It is likely
also to be devoured within the general community still trying to come
to grips with the legacy of a decade of headlines about Ellis and
the Christchurch Creche. Hood's courage in robustly presenting her
version of the tale and in seeking to learn from it should inspire
all of us to reflect soberly and thoughtfully about how child protection,
criminal investigation and legal procedures can be improved. Hard
cases, researchers' persistence and independence, and difficult issues
provide opportunities which should not be lost.
Lauren
Quaintance had a long report on Hood and the book in the 'November'
issue of Auckland-produced magazine North & South (Issue 188, 15/10/01,
pp 48-59: "The Lonely Journey Of Lynley Hood").
Quaintance's piece
was a study of Hood based around the processes and people Hood encountered
in the writing of A City Possessed. Quaintance started by saying:
It's
over eight years since Dunedin writer Lynley Hood began a book on
the Christchurch Civic Creche sexual abuse case. During that time
she's been accused of keeping an innocent man in prison for personal
gain, threatened with jail by the Court of Appeal and fallen out with
her original publishers. Meanwhile, doubters said her 230,000-word
magnum opus published this month by plucky Longacre Press would never
make it to bookshop shelves.
Further on, she
wrote:
For someone
who has never sought - indeed has for the most part successfully discouraged
- a public profile beyond her writing it has been a remarkable journey.
It has sorely tested her convictions, her friendships and her bank
balance, but it is also much more than a story about the rights or
wrongs of Peter Ellis' conviction: it is likely to be one of the greatest
contributions to this country's social history.
She remarks on Hood's
demeanour:
Because
her topic is so divisive and she has jealously - perhaps obsessively
- guarded the results of her research, Hood and her dental professor
husband Jim have had no social life to speak of since she began researching
the creche case in earnest in mid-1993. Because even her most valued
friends pressed her to discuss what her book would reveal she virtually
"stopped contact" with them. As a result, the couple's social outings
have been extremely rare and, for Lynley at least, very superficial.
Dr
Jim Hefford reviewed A City Possessed in New Zealand
GP, (31/10/01 p 29), in "Modern-day witch-hunters". He put it that Lynley
Hood has done the work that has for so long been sorely needed, and
he has strong words for sections of counselors and doctors:
Anyone
reading this book would have to agree there remains no further need
for any new examination of the Peter Ellis case. Hood, a scientist,
has done it for them - exhaustively over seven years - with the result
compressed into these 600 pages.
Her book
is a devastating indictment of the virtual reality rituals of the
courtroom, and of significant sections of the counsellors and doctors
involved In the sexual abuse field.
He remarked, in
conclusion:
Recently,
I attended a talk by Hood at the School of Psychology at Victoria
University. The lawyers present discussed the scandalous inadequacies
of the Appeal Court and review systems. Judges are appointed for life
and there is no peer review or quality assurance. And, it seems, it
would cost the government millions if a significant number of judgments
were overturned.
Hood
wondered if the process of reform might start by setting up something
like the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission at which
the falsely convicted might present their case and, if it were justified,
obtain acknowledgement and perhaps apology but not financial compensation.
Sandra
Carson in The Marlborough Express 30/11/2001 p 9, Book
Reviews wrote in review of Hood's book:
The trial
of Peter Ellis is followed in careful, but never boring or salacious,
detail. Lynley Hood is a careful and unemotive researcher. She sets
out the huge volume of data in a very readable and clearly understood
manner. When you have read her account of the trial you can have no
doubt what the outcome should have been, and you have a very clear
understanding of why it happened as it did.
David
Riddell in the Waikato Times, 13/10/01 p 9, Book Reviews, summarized:
There
can be no reasonable doubt that Peter Ellis is innocent of the crimes
for which he was convicted. More than that, there never were any crimes.
That he should have been through a trial, two appeals and a ministerial
commission of inquiry is a terrible indictment of this country's legal
system. To those unfamiliar with the case (or too close to see the
wood for the trees) the alternative, that Ellis is guilty, may seem
more plausible and reassuring. But Hood's meticulous chronological
analysis of events makes that position untenable, and clearly sets
out the steps by which a single, cryptic remark from a 3-year-old
boy escalated into a maelstrom which engulfed dozens of families,
cost millions of dollars, destroyed several careers and put the innocent
behind bars. This is a book to have you constantly shaking your head
in disbelief, yet the exhaustive standard of research (the reference
list runs to 40 pages) should leave no doubt of its basic truth.
Bernard
Robertson in the Evening News, Wellington 29/10/01 in 'Book
Reviews' gave these views of A City Possessed:
Hood
tells this story as dispassionately as is possible in the circumstances.
She sets out matters in such an even-handed manner that after reading
about the trial one feels that the conviction in respect of one child
was probably merited. But this was the same child who subsequently
made a full retraction with the result that the Court of Appeal quashed
the convictions. The first Court of Appeal inquiry examined only some
of the witnesses' evidence and concluded that it was reliable. But
being only a partial review, it was not sufficient to come to that
conclusion. Even extracts of evidence, however, can show that a witness
was confused, confusing and self-contradictory, and Hood provides
enough such extracts to show that the witnesses in this case were
all these things. �
[The
book] raises questions about our legal system which must be answered.
Penny
Pepperell in The Capital Letter, A weekly review of administration,
legislation & law, (24 TCL 42 (1128), 23/10/01, remarked in her
review of A City Possessed:
The stand
out feature � is not her conclusion that after eight years of "dredging
through the mire" she "found no evidence of illegality by anyone accused
in this case". Rather, it is the way the book challenges the reader
to examine how their opinion of this case (and everyone it seems has
one) may have been moulded by the social belief structures of the
day rather than the facts. Even those in the sceptic category who
found the evidence unconvincing (apparently including many senior
members of the legal profession) have no reason for smugness. For
this is not only a story of a moral panic but is a story of prejudices,
rivalries, empire building and the protection of vested interests
throughout the entire criminal justice system. In these questioning
times, particularly since last month's terrorist attacks in the United
States the message is not merely discomforting, it is potentially
destabilizing. Only someone outside the justice system could have
delivered it.
Reporter Martin
van Beynen of The Press (Christchurch), who followed
the Civic case at most of the depositions and all of the trial, and
who had other work published on the case, wrote an extended piece soon
after the book came out. We acknowledge that he has long held that none
of the abuses alleged at the Civic, even happened (The Press 29/9/01
WE 1-2).
~
If
you're old enough, you'll remember when the TV 'Telethon' event that
was run in New Zealand in 1988 had the focus of 'Reducing the level
of violence' in the community �
One of the advertisements
used in the build-up before the 1988 marathon drive for funds for a
worthy cause - which is what a Telethon was - used the introduction
"One of these children will be scarred for life." Apparently, according
to Lynley Hood, the advertisement carried on with the statement that
one in four girls would be sexually abused before they turn 18, half
of them by their father (see A City Possessed pp. 66-67); in
contrast, Hood noted, incest convictions nationwide for the previous
year had totalled 19. Earlier in the same chapter (2.II), Hood had explained
the origin of the inaccurate "one-in-four" 'statistic' and the inaccuracy
of the statement about fathers (on p. 53).
Joyce Gibson of
Auckland won the Sunday Star Times best letter of the week competition,
and a Waterman pen, when she summarised where the silences are most
evident in relation to the Civic case since the publication of
Lynley Hood's book (SST 11/11/01). She wrote:
R G Hayward
finds it strange that there has been little comment on Lynley Hood's
book A City Possessed from police, social workers or complainant
parents. One other group should be added to that list, Doctors for
Sexual Abuse Care.
I find
it incomprehensible that DSAC could have been so gullible as to swallow
advice from a now discredited paediatrician from the United States.
According
to Hood's book, the DSAC Manual for the medical management of child
sexual abuse was based on the work of Dr Astrid Heger, who was found
to have mis-diagnosed child sexual abuse on a massive scale.
The book
goes on: "Doctors were told to avoid statements like 'the examination
was normal' or 'no evidence of sexual abuse exists'. Instead, the
phrase 'this examination is consistent with the allegation of sexual
abuse' was recommended.
To mislead
the public and the justice system in this way is appalling. Some parents
have been led to believe their children have been sexually abused
based on spurious medical statements.
It is
no wonder DSAC has been very quiet over A City Possessed. What
they have condoned is against the principle which forms the basis
of the Hippocratic oath - first do no harm.
So, the silences
are from police, social workers, complainant parents, DSAC, ������������������������������������������������������.