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The Dominion
February 5, 2000
Ellis faces the outside world with confidence
by Alan Samson
In his first interview since being
freed, convicted child abuser Peter Ellis tells Alan Samson he will continue
the fight to clear his name
Peter Hugh McGregor Ellis is surprisingly self-assured for a man facing a
news media scrum after spending almost seven years inside.
His mother, Lesley, who has tirelessly argued his innocence and fought for
his release, has warned that he will be shaking like a leaf.
But if he is, it is not outwardly noticeable. Facing the outside world for
the first time after serving his time for 13 charges of abusing children at
the Christchurch Civic Childcare Centre, he looks calm and in control --
apart from a few nervous sideways glances.
He is certainly calm enough to look everyone in the eye and say: "There
was no abuse of children at the Civic creche."
Speaking to him the next day, it doesn't seem appropriate to dwell for long
on the accusations and charges brought against him.
With four women creche workers -- Gaye Davidson, Debbie Gillespie, Marie Keys
and Jan Buckingham, against whom all charges were dropped -- he has been
accused of offences ranging from sexual violation to suggestions of satanic
killing of babies.
One mother claimed her son had told her of being "forced to kill a boy
and animals", of visiting a church where children had been made to take
part in a marriage ceremony and of a visit to a graveyard where he had been
placed in a cage with a cat. Another accusation had children put in a tunnel
beneath a trapdoor, later forced to stand naked in a circle of adults;
indecencies were reported to have been committed on them and the children
were made to kick each other in the genitals.
Ellis was also accused, over a period of five years, of defecating and urinating
on the children, sticking sharp objects into them and hanging them in a cage
from the creche ceiling.
But only the more credible charges survived the long route to his High Court
appearance in 1993.
It all started with a bathtime comment of a creche boy about "Peter's
black penis". This boy never testified.
Another child subsequently retracted her accusations.
Reminded about a police search for "bodies", Ellis says without a
trace of a smile: "They found a dead chook . . ."
Released this week from Christchurch's
Paparoa Prison, he is eager to talk about the support that reached him by
postal service.
"I asked to receive all my mail and I got every letter . . . none of it
was unpleasant," he says.
None? "None whatsoever . . . it was wonderful." This assertion, the
day after his release, is surprising. His exit from the prison's pre-release
villas has elicited a flurry of comment. The father of one young creche girl
calls him "a time bomb, ready to explode" and Waikato University
senior law lecturer Wendy Ball, who sat through the trial and studied the Appeal Court
judgments, worries about the emotional effect of his acts on the forgotten
children.
The strongest response of all came from the commissioner for children, Roger
McClay, who urged that "the sexual abuse of our children should never be
forgotten or forgiven".
Ms Ball, who has met some of the creche children and many of their mothers,
dismisses the bizarre and sensational and says: "This was not a satanic
abuse case, it was a case of child abuse."
The satanic elements, she says, were seized upon by the news media, often out
of context. It was to the police's credit that such nonsense was dropped for
the trial after their investigations.
Justice Minister Phil Goff, who is considering an inquiry, has yet to be
convinced there is a case for a pardon.
The Appeal Court,
in twice refusing to overturn the High Court's finding of guilt, Mr Goff
says, found "no miscarriage of justice". The Appeal Court, given the opportunity to
do so by Governor-General Sir Michael Hardie Boys, had declined to reconsider
the whole case but had ruled on points of law raised.
To some, Ellis remains the devil incarnate. Asked how he could answer or deal
with such sentiment, how he survived in jail, Ellis once again professes his
innocence. "Prison was hard," he says, "in the sense that the
door handle was on the other side and I was always waiting for someone to
say, `You've got a ruling'. But I had strength from all the people who wrote to
me."
Ellis, despite being a convicted paedophile, went unbullied by other
prisoners or prison staff.
Mrs Ellis tells the tale of how the two warders who stood by her son at the
trial, after escorting him to jail, said: "This one's innocent."
"They certainly gave their opinion," Ellis says. "There seemed
to be a general sense (from officers) of, `We're not comfortable with things,
but . . .' I was given no more of a hard time in the initial stages than
anyone hitting the prison system."
He also won the support of inmates' families. "Quite often a mother of
an inmate would say, `I don't believe he's guilty', and that would be
enough."
I ask him if, while still asserting his innocence, it wouldn't have been
easier to have accepted parole terms to be freed a couple of years earlier.
That was not an option, he says simply. He says he gained strength "from
my mother, my family, from (supporters) Winston Wealleans and Roger Keys and
(mother of an accused creche worker) Nancy Gillespie, who religiously turned
up at least once a month, sometimes twice a month.
"There were also mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters of the
creche workers that came and saw me, friends of my mother and people who knew
me as a child. And I kept getting letters from people I didn't know."
One writer called his epistles "ladder letters", and numbered them
11, 12, 13. . . Letters came, Ellis says, from Kaitaia to Bluff. "They
were my strength."
He adds: "If you didn't get on with things, you'd be crushed. You had to
focus on every positive thing that came along."
ELLIS describes himself as, "by nature, a happy person", from a
happy family background. "When mum was required, she was there. You
couldn't get better than a mum like that. I've got the greatest mum in the
world."
He says he feels no bitterness toward his accusers. "I'm not bitter. You
have to go on living. I can be angry, but I'm more angry with what I hope
will be dealt with in an independent inquiry . . . a fair and impartial one.
To get bitter would never help me and would diminish the support I've had
from people."
Walking free was "very surreal".
"The prison played it by the book, they maintained all the correct
standards they should," he says. "We didn't sneak out the back
door. They just drove me home in an ordinary prison car."
At his first press conference last Wednesday, Ellis referred to the
difficulty of previously having to have others speak for him. The transition
is clearly far from easy. Asked about the likely commission of inquiry
proposed by Mr Goff, he says only: "Quite clearly, that's up to the
minister of justice and (Ellis's lawyer) Judith Ablett Kerr and her team. I
am sure they'll focus on the best result. I believe justice will out in the
end for the sake of everyone."
It's not the time to talk sensibly to Ellis about his future, except to
confirm that his immediate plan is to settle with his mother. He has no plans
to change cities or countries; emigration is an unlikely option because of
his convictions.
And in the meantime, the conditions of his release mean that he must live at
his mother's address, not contact the children involved in the case, or their
families, and not do any paid or voluntary work without the approval of his
probation officer.
The conditions do not bother him. "I've been enjoying doing quite
ordinary things, like looking in cupboards and at books," he says.
"I've had a bit of fun with the oven."
The other "bit of fun" has been helping a cat he acquired when at
his pre-release villa learn how to use the cat-door. He's called the cat
Fergus.
At the time of this interview, he hadn't been into town or the local shops.
But, according to his mother, he can't put off too long the need to buy new
glasses and clothes.
After nationwide publicity, the chances of his new look -- long hair in a
ponytail -- granting him anonymity appear to have been shattered.
"I've got to be here," he says. "To continue the fight and be
available. I'll go on till it's resolved."
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