Peter Hugh McGregor Ellis (30 March 1958 – 4 September 2019) was a New Zealand childcare worker who was convicted of child sexual abuse, but later had his conviction quashed. He was at the centre of one of the country's most enduring judicial controversies, after being found guilty in June 1993 in the High Court on 16 counts of sexual offences involving children in his care at the Christchurch Civic Creche and sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment. He maintained his innocence until his death 26 years later and was supported by many New Zealanders in his attempts to overturn his convictions, although others believed he was guilty. Concerns about the reliability of the convictions centred on far-fetched stories told by many of the children (alleging Satanic ritual abuse) and the interview techniques used to obtain their testimony.
In 1994, Ellis took his case to the Court of Appeal which quashed convictions on three of the charges but upheld the sentence. His conviction and sentence were upheld in his second appearance before the Court of Appeal in October 1999. In March 2000, former Chief Justice Sir Thomas Eichelbaum was appointed to conduct a ministerial inquiry reviewing the children's evidence. His report upheld the guilty verdicts. The same month Governor-General Sir Michael Hardie Boys rejected Ellis' third bid for pardon on the advice of Justice Minister Phil Goff, who was satisfied with Eichelbaum's finding that Ellis had failed to prove his convictions were unsafe. Ellis refused to attend parole board hearings while in prison because he would have to confess to the crimes in order to obtain early release.
Ellis was eventually released in February 2000 after serving seven years in prison. After his release, he continued campaigning to clear his name. In 2019, nineteen years after he was released, he appealed to the Supreme Court to have his conviction overturned. Although he died of cancer before the appeal could be heard, the Supreme Court allowed the appeal in the interests of justice and delivered a judgment in October 2022. The Supreme Court quashed Ellis' convictions, finding that there were problems with the evidence of the main prosecution witness, a psychiatrist, and the jury had not been fairly informed of the risk of contamination of the children's evidence. This marked the first time that a conviction has been quashed posthumously in New Zealand.
The Ellis case was one of several similar high-profile child abuse cases around the world in the 1980s and early 1990s as part of the Satanic panic, and has been mentioned as a cause in the decline in the number of male teachers in New Zealand schools. Two books and numerous articles for reproductions of articles. have been written about the case.
Personal life Ellis was the eldest of four children. His parents were teachers who separated when he was nine. He left school in 1975 to take up tobacco picking in Motueka. After two years overseas, he returned to New Zealand. He then had a part-time job in a bakery in the 1980s which eventually became full-time. When he left this job and applied for unemployment benefits, authorities discovered he had received dole payments to which he was not entitled. He was prosecuted and convicted in 1986 of "misleading a social welfare officer" and sentenced to 80 hours community service.
Ellis carried out his community service at the Christchurch Civic Creche. His supervisor, Dora Reinfeld, later reported that "Peter[...] provided some hilarious puppetry showsone of which we had to abandon as staff and children 'got out of hand. Ellis became a relieving worker, and Reinfeld's next monthly report said: "Peter Ellis has fitted in extremely well and puts lots of energy into programme planning. Fantastic team spirit." Ellis's pre-sentencing report said, "The overall picture gained of Peter Ellis is that of an outgoing, uninhibited, unconventional person given to putting plenty of enthusiasm and energy into his work and social activities, sometimes to the point of being risqué and outrageous."
Before his imprisonment, Ellis had sexual relationships lasting for periods of two to five years with both men and women. He told Lynley Hood, "In a relationship with a woman I was, for want of a better word, bisexual, and with a man I was monogamous." Ellis was described by Hood as appearing "blatantly homosexual", due to his bright clothes, long hair, makeup and demeanour. After his release, he lived an isolated life, settling in the small community of Leithfield Beach in north Canterbury.
In July 2019, Ellis was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He died on 4 September 2019 while appealing his conviction at the age of 61.
Investigations
First allegation and police investigation Ellis loved animals and kept rabbits, cats and dogs as pets. In late September 1991, the mother of a four-year-old boy at the creche, a social worker who had herself recovered memories of sexual abuse, bought a black puppy from him. Ellis showed her son how to identify the puppy's sex.
A few months later, in November 1991, the mother alleged that her son said he "didn't like Peter's black penis". His mother, who had written a handbook on sexual abuse, concluded her son had been sexually abused. She made a formal complaint to the creche in November 1991. After a brief investigation, the police decided there was no case to answer, but Ellis had already been suspended from work. The mother then withdrew her son from the creche and enrolled him into a different Christchurch daycare centre. Shortly thereafter, she alleged a male worker at this second creche had also abused her son. The police investigated and again found no evidence to support the allegation.
Ellis was popular with children and parents at the creche. In the week following his November 1991 suspension, inspectors from the Education Review Office spent a week at the Civic Creche observing its daily operation. The office subsequently issued a favourable report, stating that the staff "ensure personal needs are met with warmth, care and consideration", and that the children "appear happy, inquisitive and sociable" and "have high self-esteem".
Second police investigation Even though police concluded no abuse had occurred, some parents started asking their children about what went on at the creche and then shared these stories with other parents. The Department of Social Welfare was called in to conduct formal interviews with many of these children. A social welfare psychologist, Sue Sidey, initially revealed that there were six children for whom she felt there were grounds for concern, although the children made no disclosures of any indecent touching by a creche staff member. More parents became concerned that something must have happened. As the social welfare interviews continued, claims about bizarre sexual abuse incidents began to surface. A meeting was held at the creche attended by staff members, a group of concerned parents and representatives from the Social Welfare Department. In response, the police reopened their investigation.
Altogether, at least 127 children were interviewed. Some detectives believed that up to 80 had been abused. Ellis was accused, among other things, of "sodomising children, forcing them to eat his faeces, urinating on them, suspending them in cages, taking them on terrifying trips of abuse through tunnels, ceilings and trapdoors". Other allegations included children being forced into a steaming hot oven or buried in coffins; one boy claimed he had his belly-button removed with pliers. Allegations which emerged later as the interviews progressed included "Asian men dressed as cowboys, Masonic lodges, cemeteries, the Park Royal Hotel and private houses far from the creche", and "the notorious 'circle incident' where Ellis and his co-workers supposedly took a group of children to 404 Hereford St on the other side of town and made them stand naked and kick each other while the adults danced around them ... Alleged by one parent, was the sacrifice of a boy called Andrew." No child was actually reported missing by anyone involved. The allegations were similar to those made in other Satanic ritual abuse cases.
Arrests Arrest of Ellis The police arrested Ellis on 30 March 1992, charging him with the first of what would eventually be 45 counts of sexually abusing 20 different children at the creche. By the time the case went to trial, the Crown had reduced the number of charges to 28, involving 13 complainants. Some charges were dropped because the crown prosecutor, Brent Stanaway, did not want to put the more bizarre claims made by some of the children before a conservative Christchurch jury.
Arrest of colleagues and closure of creche In addition to interviews conducted by Sue Sidey, the Christchurch City Council, which owned the creche, requested that psychologist and sex therapist Rosemary Smart review the management practices at the creche. Even though Smart's report was completed in July 1992, nearly 12 months before Ellis' trial, she seems to have assumed he was guilty; although she uses the word "alleged" occasionally, journalist Cate Brett said "the report reads as if the abuse had happened and Ellis had been convicted". Smart suggested that female staff may have been involved with abuse at the Civic Creche. She quoted research by the New Hampshire sociologist David Finkelhor, whose 1987 book, Nursery Crimes, became the source for American believers in ritual abuse occurring in creches. Finkelhor's work has since been discredited.
After Smart's report was completed in July 1992, a copy was given to police. Detectives said her report was central to their decision to investigate four of Ellis's female colleagues at the creche. Their houses were searched for everything from pornography to babies' bodies. Nothing was found. In September 1992, the Ministry of Education suspended the creche's licence and it was closed.
The four female staff members were arrested on 1 October 1992 amid considerable televised publicity. At depositions they faced 15 charges that included sexual violation, indecent assault and one charge of performing an indecent act (having sex with Ellis) in a public place. Judge Williamson subsequently discharged them on the basis that the evidence against them was of "insufficient weight" and that the publicity meant their chances of a fair trial would be prejudiced by their association with Ellis. Although the charges were dropped, their careers were ruined. In March 1995, the four female employees and six other former staff who had also lost their jobs were awarded $1 million by the Employment Court for unjustified dismissal. In September 1996 the Court of Appeal reduced the payment to around $80,000, which for some staff was not enough to pay their legal costs.
Trial Barristers Rob Harrison and Siobhan McNulty represented Ellis; Brent Stanaway and Chris Lange appeared for the Crown. The offences were alleged to have taken place at unspecified times and dates between 1 May 1986 (four months before Ellis started work at the creche) and 1 October 1992 (11 months after he left the creche, and a month after the creche was closed). Defence counsel, Rob Harrison, wanted the jury to see the children's videotaped testimony containing the bizarre allegations as "he believed they would cast reasonable doubt on the more credible testimony." However, Justice Williamson ruled that these tapes were not relevant. In A City Possessed, Lynley Hood observed: "[Judge] Williamson's rulings before and during the trial meant Ellis' lawyer Rob Harrison was effectively hamstrung – the jury did not get to hear the most bizarre of the children's allegations, but did learn of the highly prejudicial but irrelevant conversations Ellis had about unusual sexual practices between consenting adults."