This month’s episode of the Herald podcast A Moment In Crime tells the story of one of New Zealand’s most controversial legal cases – and miscarriages of justice.
In 1992, Christchurch Civic Creche childcare worker Peter Ellis was accused of a raft of bizarre childsex offences, including 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 children reportedly claimed they were forced into a steaming hot oven or buried in coffins.
One child said his belly button was removed with pliers.
Later, there were allegations of “Asian men dressed as cowboys” abuse at Masonic lodges, cemeteries, the Park Royal Hotel and private houses that were all a significant distance from the creche.
And then there was the circle incident – perhaps the most discussed and most controversial allegation of the Ellis case.
Peter Ellis.
It was claimed that a group of children were taken to an address on the other side of Christchurch and forced to stand naked in a circle while adults danced around them.
The adults encouraged the children to kick each other in the genitals.
Ellis denied all of the charges but in 1993, after a six-week trial, a jury found him guilty on 16 counts of child sexual abuse involving seven children at the creche.
He seven years in prison before being released in 2000.
In 2019, the Supreme Court agreed to hear his final appeal, based on the fairness of his trial.
Ellis passed away from bladder cancer several months later.
In 2022 – for the first time in New Zealand history – the Supreme Court allowed the appeal to proceed posthumously.
Peter Ellis, pictured in 2003, was convicted at his trial in 1993 of 16 counts of sexual offending against seven children at the Christchurch creche where he worked. Photo / Martin Woodhall
A panel of senior judges unanimously found that Ellis had suffered a substantial miscarriage of justice due to inadmissible expert evidence and the risk of contamination in the children’s testimonies.
They ruled that during the trial the evidence from the Crown’s expert witness lacked balance.
Further, the jury was not adequately informed about the risk of contamination in the memories of young children.
The case of Peter Ellis is one of the most controversial court cases and arguably one of the most outrageous miscarriages of justice in our country’s legal history.
In today’s episode of A Moment In Crime, host and senior journalist Anna Leask discusses the story of Peter Ellis – who he was, how he came to be at the centre of a national sex abuse scandal and why he was finally exonerated.
Herald podcast A Moment In Crime has reached 1 million downloads.
Episodes of A Moment In Crime are usually released monthly and, so far, Leask has covered more than 60 cases, including the murders of Grace Millane, Scott Guy, Austin Hemmings, Carmen Thomas, Karen Aim; the deaths of the Kahui twins; the Christchurch mosque attack and the historic Heavenly Creatures murder; the case of Lauren Dickason who was jailed for murdering her three young daughters soon after emigrating to New Zealand; and the massacres at Raurimu and Aramoana.
Since 2019, A Moment in Crime has produced over 50 episodes and has been downloaded over 1 million times, with listeners in over 170 countries. It was nominated for Best True Crime Podcast at the 2024 Radio and Podcast Awards.
A Moment in Crime is available on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes are released monthly.
Anna Leask is a Christchurch-based reporter who covers national crime and justice. She joined the Herald in 2008 and has worked as a journalist for just under 20 years with a particular focus on family and gender-based violence, child abuse, sexual violence, homicides, mental health and youth crime. She writes, hosts and produces the award-winning podcast A Moment In Crime, released monthly on nzherald.co.nz
