his case. Defence lawyer Rob Harrison told the court that the women's evidence was not relevant to the appeal, and if the evidence was admitted it would expand the scope of the appeal to challenge its reliability, through ACC and other records. He said there was no corroborating evidence and it was unfair to admit her statement now given Ellis could no longer respond to it. He also said the woman's statement was inconsistent with earlier statements she had given, suggesting her memory was "evolving". Crown lawyer John Billington admitted there were inconsistencies in the woman's statement and no corroborating evidence to support it. Nonetheless, he said the court must decide if the evidence was helpful in deciding the case. On 16 June 2021 the Court dismissed the application for the women's evidence to be used in the appeal, concluding it was inadmissible. October 2021 hearing The appeal hearing began on 4 October 2021. The Supreme Court took the unusual step of hearing new evidence. Experts from both sides, some from Australia and the US, gave evidence in a panel setting by video link. Counsel for Ellis, Rob Harrison, said the appeal would focus on four issues: the questioning and risk of contamination of the children's testimony; that the jury was inappropriately assisted by the expert testimony of the period; that an expert witness's claims of symptoms exhibited by children being linked to abuse were without scientific foundation; and that the trial was inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and unfair due to sanitisation of charges. The experts for Ellis' case were memory researcher Harlene Hayne, vice-chancellor of Curtin University, Perth, Australia (and former vice-chancellor of the University of Otago), University of Otago clinical psychologist and memory scientist Deirdre Brown, New Zealand clinical psychologist Tess Patterson, and memory expert Mark Howe from Canada. The Crown experts were Gail Goodman, a memory researcher from the University of California, Frederick Seymour, the former head of the clinical psychology programme at Auckland University, and Auckland clinical psychologist Suzanne Blackwell, who often gave evidence in court about the reliability of sexual abuse accounts. The experts were in fair agreement that young children can recall distinctive and stressful events with a high degree of accuracy, even after long delays, if they are interviewed appropriately and not exposed to additional incorrect information. However, the interview techniques, expert evidence at Ellis' trial and evidence