Justice Minister Phil Goff said last night that the jury was aware of the existence of "bizarre and fanciful" childrens' testimonies in the Peter Ellis case, even though the trial judge ruled against playing excerpts of those particular tapes. Referring to an international expert brought in on the Ellis appeal, Goff said that the presence of "bizarre elements" was not in itself proof that all of a child's evidence was tainted. Former sir chief justice Sir Thomas Eichelbaum had found in two separate appeals that Ellis' supporters “fell well short of demonstrating that his convictions were unsafe”. Goff was responding to yesterday's newspaper advertisement placed by publisher Barry Colman, in which unedited and previously unreleased transcripts of childrens' testimonies in the Ellis case were placed alongside the excerpts the jury was played. Goff said he was acting under legal advice from the Crown Law Office when he said that the advertisement contained no new evidence.