Deborah Coddington: Mob rule has no place in hallowed justice system

Peter Ellis. Photo / Mark Mitchell.

Peter Ellis' quest to clear his name marches on doggedly like Russian troops in snow.

Judith Ablett-Kerr, QC, has announced she'll petition the Governor-General for a full pardon because new research, analysed at the University of Otago, suggests children who were witnesses at Ellis' original trial may have been coerced, through repeated questioning, into "laying blame".

Good luck to her and Ellis; it must be hell having these convictions against your name when you're innocent.

All we really know are the facts of the case: Peter Hugh McGregor Ellis was found guilty on 16 charges of sexually abusing 11 children in his care at the Christchurch Civic Creche. In 1993 he was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment. In 1994 the Court of Appeal quashed convictions on three of the charges but upheld the sentence.

His conviction and sentence were upheld for the second time in the Court of Appeal, in October 1999. Ellis was released from prison in February 2000. In March 2000 Governor-General Sir Michael Hardie Boys rejected Ellis' third bid for pardon upon the advice of Justice Minister Phil Goff, who remained satisfied with the findings of former Chief Justice Sir Thomas Eichelbaum - that Ellis had failed to prove his convictions were unsafe.

However, after writer Dr Lynley Hood published her book, A City Possessed, legal professionals around the country campaigned to have the Ellis case put back on the political agenda. Hood, seeking a public inquiry, accused Goff of moral cowardice, and an increasing number of people in New Zealand were convinced by Hood's book that Ellis was innocent, had not had a fair trial and that the justice system contained a number of flaws.

Commenting on Ellis' bid for a pardon, Hood said Ellis had long ago received what she called a "people's pardon in the court of public opinion".

She went on to say that most New Zealanders and most Christchurch residents believed Ellis had been wrongly convicted but people in positions of power were covering their backs and reluctant to admit they were wrong.

I don't know Hood but I admire her work, not just for the painstaking research, but her writing is also stylish and engaging. It's rare for journalists to attract praise from the legal fraternity, as she did for A City Possessed. Stuart Grieve, QC, reviewed it as a "scholarly and academic work". Mike Behrens, QC, said: "Not bandwagon stuff, a historian who has left no source unturned." But I felt great unease when I read the latest comments from Hood. A people's pardon? Court of public opinion?

Isn't this what Hood was implicitly exposing in her 672-page examination of the hysteria which got Ellis convicted in the first place? The court of public opinion is all very fine when the votes are trending in our direction, but what about when emotion swings the other way?

That's when we get into witches of Salem territory, and why we need the cold, dispassionate marbled halls of justice. They may not always be perfect but they're the best we've got, and certainly preferable to mob rule.

Anyway, it's curious that Ablett Kerr is pursuing the prerogative of mercy. The Governor-General will seek advice from the Minister of Justice, then decide whether to pardon Ellis, refer the question to the Court of Appeal (again), or do nothing.

This is virtually the same path Ellis has traversed before, with hardly dramatic new evidence.

The bigger question is why doesn't Ablett-Kerr take this case to the Privy Council, something she's been promising to do since 2008? Ellis is one of the last New Zealanders to have this privilege. It costs little more than the airfare - she should take advantage of this judicial independence.

And now Labour's not in charge, the National Government should immediately set up a criminal cases review commission, as recommended by Sir Thomas Thorp. We can't keep having people like Ellis, Rex Haig, David Dougherty and Scott Watson spending decades fighting for justice through newspapers and websites.

It's terrible for them, it's a huge drain on taxpayers and trashes the reputation of our justice system.