Peter Ellis case

We've covered the Peter Ellis case before, and indeed, it was a particular focus of NZ Skeptics activity in the 1990s.

For background, Peter Ellis was a childcare worker at the Christchurch Civic Creche. He, and four women colleagues were charged with sexual abuse of preschool children in their care. All four women had their charges dropped, but Peter Ellis's case went to trial, where he was convicted on 16 counts and sentenced to 10 years in prison. He maintained his innocence throughout, but sadly died in September 2019, after being diagnosed with bladder cancer earlier that year. He was only 61 when he died.

It's now been over 30 years since the alleged offending occurred, but the case has continued to appear in the media. There were various unsuccessful appeals, even though the supposed “most credible” child witness retracted her story in 1994, saying she's made up a “wee story” and it grew from there. And the stories from other children were quite incredible - with claims that Ellis pushed children into a manhole with gorillas in it, and that Peter Ellis's mother had hung them in cages from the ceiling. These are fairly clearly the products of active childhood imaginations, probably polluted by stories such as Hansel and Gretel.

The details of the case have always been of interest to skeptics. At the time, there was much weight given to the concept of satanic ritual sexual abuse, imported mostly from the US. Indeed, there were “experts” from the US who imported that experience here - one of which misrepresented her qualifications, and another who misdiagnosed child abuse in children in California about a decade earlier. The interview techniques used on the children were likely to have corrupted their testimony, and there was an attitude at the time that children must be believed, and that they wouldn't make stuff up.

In 2000 there was a narrow Ministerial Inquiry into the case, by retired justice Thomas Eichelbaum. Eichelbaum's inquiry focused solely on the interview techniques used in the case, but, strangely in my opinion, he did not find those bad enough that they would have affected the outcome of the case. I wonder whether a life immersed in the judicial system might have influenced his views.

The latest on the case is an appeal that was heard at the Supreme Court in September last year, after being lodged back in 2019, around the time of Ellis's diagnosis with terminal cancer. The decision on the appeal is due to be released fairly soon.

This week, there's been a series of good articles (here, and here) and accompanying video around the case on the Newsroom site, as part of their Investigations series. The investigations were done by Melanie Reid and Bonnie Sumner. Reid has been at the centre of reporting on the case since the early 90s. I criticised Melanie Reid earlier this year in a newsletter after her appalling interview with the women from Voices for Freedom during the parliament protests, but it would appear that this time, her investigative journalism has been excellent.

The articles, and accompanying video are well worth a read and watch.

The outcome of the case at the Supreme Court will hopefully be positive for Peter Ellis's memory. Perhaps, on reflection after nearly three decades, it will finally be realised by the court that there was a miscarriage of justice, and that religious zealots with strange ideas badly influenced the case.