Peter Ellis (childcare worker), Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetPeter Ellis (childcare worker)
child care worker convicted child sex-offender
Date of Birth: 30-Mar-1958
Place of Birth: Christchurch, Canterbury Region, New Zealand
Date of Death: 04-Sep-2019
Profession: Childcare Worker
Nationality: New Zealand
Zodiac Sign: Aries 
About Peter Ellis (childcare worker)
- Peter Hugh McGregor Ellis (30 March 1958 – 4 September 2019) was a New Zealand child care worker who was convicted of child sexual abuse.
- 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 of New Zealand 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.
- Concerns about the reliability of the convictions centred on lurid stories told by many of the children and the interview techniques used to obtain their testimony.
- In 1994, Ellis took his case to the Court of Appeal of New Zealand 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 argue for early release.
- He was released in February 2000 after serving seven years in prison.
- Two books and numerous articles have been written about the case.
- After his release, Ellis 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, but died of cancer before the appeal could be heard. The Ellis case was one of several similar high profile child abuse cases around the world in the 1980s and early 1990s.
- It has been mentioned as a cause in the decline in the number of male teachers in New Zealand schools.
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