CAS Wants Critic in Jail

August 21, 2005 permalink

CAS is moving this Wednesday to jail Aneurin Ellis for publicly criticizing Children's Aid. We have posted some of the court documents in the case.

In the summer of 2002 Aneurin and Patricia Ellis had a fight in which she made accusations against her husband to the police. By the time he went to the police, she had recanted the allegations, but the police charged him anyway. The charges were withdrawn months later but CAS intervened while the matter was pending, and has been in the family for three years. During that time CAS got a default order to take the kids after the family told them they had to go to Aneurin's dying mother, the children have been taken away twice, and CAS coached their then four-year-old daughter to say on video tape that dad held his hand in her vagina (She could not pronounce vagina correctly in the early part of the tape). The family can no longer afford a lawyer, and Mr Ellis handles the court matters by himself. He has distributed letters opposing CAS before, and Peter Ringrose, Executive Director of CAS, has sued him in a civil action, also getting a judgment by default.

Addendum: In court on August 24, the case was postponed for two weeks to September 7, 2005 to allow Mr Ellis to get legal advice.