Peter Hugh Mc Gregor Ellis - Children's Forensic Interviews

Children's Forensic Interviews

At least 118 children were interviewed as part of the second investigation into allegations of sexual abuse. Some had allegedly made allegations to their parents. Some were formally interviewed after they had been mentioned in abuse allegations made by other children. Many were interviewed following advice given to parents by police, sexual abuse counsellors and therapists. Some children were formally interviewed up to six times. One of the complainants upon whose evidence Ellis was convicted was formally interviewed over an eight-month period.

Since 1996 the New Zealand Department of Child, Youth and Family Services has recommended that children who are interviewed to determine if they have been abused should undergo only one evidential interview. Professor Stephen J. Ceci of Cornell University, an expert in children's suggestibility and children's courtroom testimony, has studied transcripts of many of the children's evidential interviews. In July 1995 he said the interviews "were not conducted in accordance with currently understood scientific principles". According to Ceci, it is impossible to distinguish between accurate and inaccurate allegations when children are suggestively and repeatedly interviewed over a long period.

Contrary to best practice guidelines, parents and interviewers discussed children's abuse-allegations that had been previously elicited by parents. Department of Social Welfare specialist interviewers Lynda Morgan and Sue Sidey both testified that they would then try to elicit the same allegations from the child. They would not try to determine if the allegations were reliable nor explore all possible origins of the children's allegations. One mother reportedly told her son's interviewer that she had repeatedly asked him direct questions. She said she was told she had done nothing wrong (Bander, 1997).

During the forensic interviews, children were asked if they had anything to say about the Civic Creche. Few allegations of abuse emerged during this phase of the interviews. Later in the interviews, many specific and direct questions were employed to elicit allegations that children had made to their parents. A number of suggestive and leading questions were asked. Questions were sometimes repeated when the child had already provided an answer. Children were seldom advised that it was acceptable to say "I don't know" or "I can't remember". Sue Sidey testified that "don't knows" and "can't remembers" were often "anxious responses". She provided no evidence to support her claim.

Anatomically correct dolls were used. Best practice for forensic interviewing now stipulates that interviewers should not employ such dolls. Best practice also stipulates that an interviewer should try to ascertain the source of a child's claims. Interviewers generally didn't ask children what they had previously heard or had been told about the case. They didn't ask the children what their parents had said to them about Peter Ellis or the Civic Creche. The evidential interviewers seldom probed children's bizarre allegations and sometimes ignored their own guidelines. One complainant told Sue Sidey on 14 occasions that she wanted to leave the interviewing room. Sidey testified at trial that the child appeared to be "very anxious".