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Peter Ellis asks Supreme Court to hear his appeal over Civic Creche convictions (picture from 2003)

Peter Ellis is fighting to clear his name some 26 years after he was convicted of sex offences against seven children at the Christchurch Civic Creche.
Supporters say Ellis – who has served his prison sentence and lives quietly in rural Canterbury – hopes to clear his name before he dies.
He has filed an application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court. He lost his case in the Court of Appeal nearly 20 years ago, in October 1999.

The case involved sometimes bizarre allegations that first emerged in 1991 and saw several of the Christchurch Civic Creche workers charged, although only Ellis was convicted.It was alleged the children were violated with needles and forced to perform bizarre and violent sexual rituals, drink urine, and were defecated on.

Ellis' defenders claim the stories were figments of the preschoolers' imaginations.
Ellis, now 61, served seven years of a 10-year jail sentence, before being released in February 2000.

The lawyer who represented him at his trial in 1993, Rob Harrison, is once again on the case and says thousands of hours of work had been done looking at the field of child psychology and what impacts on young interview subjects.
"It deserves to be aired and looked at again," Harrison said.

Developments in research undertaken over the past 25 years gave better information about how children respond and how to get information from them.
"I would have often thought about the case and it's one of those cases that is always there.
"It needs to be resolved and it's a shame it has taken us this long."

Ellis stood trial at the High Court in Christchurch in 1993, and was convicted of 16 charges after a six-week trial. He had been discharged on

some charges and acquitted on others.

Three of the convictions were overturned on appeal in 1994 when one of the complainants retracted her allegations.
Following applications to the governor-general to exercise the prerogative of mercy, the case was referred back to the Court of Appeal in 1999, but the remaining 13 convictions stood.
Throughout, the case called into question the techniques used to interview child complainants and the risk that their evidence might have been contaminated.
It was suggested parents and professional interviewers had asked direct and suggestive questions of children, and that the children were spoken to repeatedly about the allegations.
The grounds of appeal recorded in a Supreme Court summary of Ellis' latest application are to consider whether there was a miscarriage of justice:

- arising from risks of contamination of or improperly obtained children's evidence

- arising from lack of expert evidence on the reliability of child complainants' evidence

- due to unreliable expert evidence being led at trial

The Supreme Court has a two-step appeal process.
The court first decides if it will hear the appeal, based on whether it is in the interests of justice. The judges consider whether it is a matter of general public importance, and whether a substantial miscarriage of justice has occurred or will occur if the appeal is not heard.

It is only if the court gives permission that an appeal can be heard.
Since Ellis was first convicted the Supreme Court has taken over from the Privy Council in London as New Zealand's highest court. The Crown had
agreed to Ellis taking his case to the Supreme Court rather than seeking a Privy Council appeal.

Harrison said Ellis was hoping to have an answer fairly soon about possible time frames for progressing his case.
A senior Christchurch lawyer who had previously represented Ellis, Nigel Hampton, QC, has continued to take an interest.

"I think it is a festering sore," he said recently.

The Ellis case has prompted more scrutiny than almost any other in New Zealand's legal history, involving three court hearings, four petitions seeking his pardon, and numerous other campaigns.
In 2000 former Chief Justice Sir Thomas Eichelbaum was appointed to review the case, but did not find the convictions were unsafe. In 2014 former National Party leader Don Brash, and author Lynley Hood who had written a book about the case, renewed their call for an independent inquiry, but that was refused.

Parliament is considering a law change to establish a commission to review criminal cases where miscarriages of justice are alleged. Ellis' case was among those referred to at the Select Committee stage.
Hampton said then he would not want judges appointed to a commission, and favoured allowing reviews to continue even after the subject of them had died.
"Peter Ellis comes to mind. If he were to die. I think [that] is an extraordinary miscarriage of justice."
"In contrast to most miscarriage cases, where the wrong person is convicted of something, Ellis has been convicted of crimes that never existed. If he were to die, he would still die a convicted man."

A CASE HISTORY
1991 Peter Ellis was suspended from his job at the Civic Creche after allegations of sex offences were made
1993 Ellis convicted of 16 charges at the High Court in Christchurch
1994 Three convictions overturned by Appeal Court after one complainant says she lied.
1999 Court of Appeal upholds remaining 13 convictions.
2000 Ellis is released from jail having served seven years of a 10-year sentence
2000 Review by former Chief Justice Sir Thomas Eichelbaum did not find the convictions were unsafe.
2001 A City Possessed by Lynley Hood criticises the convictions
2003 Petitions call for a Royal Commission of Inquiry.
2014 Failed call for an independent inquiry by former National Party leader Don Brash, and author Lynley Hood

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