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The Dominion
March 17 1995
Ellis first to be arrested
The first arrest by police investigating the series of sometimes
bizarre allegations of sexual abuse by workers at the Christchurch civic
creche was of Peter Ellis in March 1992.
Beginning from allegations he had indecently assaulted a girl under the age
of six, he ended up facing 45 charges of indecencies on children, including
assaults on boys aged between two and four and sexually violating by rape a
girl under five.
Within a year, four women childcare workers, Gaye Davidson, Marie Keys,
Deborah Gillespie and Janice Buckingham, were also committed for trial on
charges that they had committed indecencies against children in their care.
Davidson, Keys and Buckingham faced four joint charges with Ellis, standing
accused of sexually violating a boy aged between three and four by unlawful
sexual connection, indecently assaulting the same boy, another boy and a
girl. Gillespie was accused with Ellis of performing an indecent act in the
toilets, as well as one charge of indecent assault and one of sexual
violation.
The court heard of numerous supposed offences, many described in evidence as
bizarre. These included that children had been kicked, burned and poked with
needles, and that a child had been kept confined behind a trapdoor. There was
also reference to taped allegations of a stabbing and graves being dug up,
that children were hung in cages from the ceiling, that children had been
taken to a Masonic lodge, and that police were investigating a possible child
pornography ring.
By June 1993, all charges against the women were dropped. Ellis is serving 10
years in prison after the Appeal Court rejected his application to have both
the conviction and sentence thrown out.
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