Ellis complaint against RNZ programme upheld

The Broadcasting Standards Authority (BSA) yesterday released a decision upholding a complaint from Peter Ellis about an interview conducted on National Radio's Nine to Noon programme in August 2003.

Mr Ellis, a Christchurch civic creche childcare worker, was convicted of child abuse and sentenced to 10 years in jail in 1993.

He was freed in 2000 having always maintained his innocence.

In a statement the BSA said it had ordered Radio New Zealand to pay $5300 legal costs to the complainant and to broadcast an apology on Nine to Noon.

RNZ was also to publish a summary of the decision in four major metropolitan daily newspapers and pay maximum costs of $5000 to the Crown.

During the broadcast an anonymous mother and son had been interviewed. They had made new, unspecified allegations concerning Mr Ellis and the Christchurch Civic Creche in 1985, which had not been part of the court proceedings concerning the creche, the statement said.

The BSA ruled that the broadcast seriously breached standards of fairness and balance. It noted that Mr Ellis was being anonymously accused of criminal but unspecified offending.

Mr Ellis had previously declined an invitation to participate in a "sympathetic" interview. He had not been made aware of the new allegations before they were broadcast. Even so the allegations were so vague they would have been impossible to defend, the statement said.

The allegations made by the interviewees had been neither substantiated nor critically examined by the broadcaster. The authority noted its "deep concern at a serious disregard for Mr Ellis's rights".

- NZPA