Peter Ellis (childcare worker)

Common card · No. 381990

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...

Read on Wikipedia · Image North&South magazine, November 2015, CC BY-SA 4.0