The Press
April 24, 2002
Ellis complaint widens
by Yvonne Martin
Police are widening their investigation into the latest
complaint laid against Peter Ellis to cover two other people the complainant
claims were also abused by him.
A young Christchurch
man laid a formal complaint in January 2001 alleging that he was sexually
abused by Ellis and others when he was a boy at the Christchurch Civic
Childcare Centre.
The complainant, now 20, was not party to the
original police inquiries in 1992-93 which resulted in Ellis being sentenced
to 10 years jail for his conviction on 13 charges of abusing children in his
care.
Police say they have obtained a legal opinion
suggesting that the similar nature of the allegations made the possibility of
fresh charges being laid against Ellis unlikely, given the fact that he had already
served a sentence.
Police child abuse unit manager Detective Sergeant
Chris Power said the police were guided by that legal opinion, but other
people may be criminally liable in the case.
"He (the complainant) has alleged that two
others were involved," said Mr Power. "An important part of our
investigation will be establishing their identity."
Mr Power said that once inquiries were completed,
the unit would make a recommendation to police managers about whether to
proceed with legal action against any other individual.
The family of the 20-year-old complainant, who
recently married, have been advised by police not to comment.
Kathryn Johnston, co-ordinator of the Support
Network for Parents and Caregivers of Sexually Abused Children who is supporting
the family, said they were frustrated over the time the case was taking.
"They are trying to be patient. They have been
reassured that there is an ongoing process, but it is obviously an incredibly
slow one," she said.
Dunedin author Lynley Hood, whose book A City Possessed called
into question the safety of Ellis's convictions, said it was time for police
to "put up or shut up".
"All this innuendo is just sleaze tactics on
the part of the police," she said."Isn't it about time they
responded to the issues raised in A City Possessed instead of trying this
underhand way of reviving the case?"
The book said that "moral panic" and
parental hysteria led to Ellis being sentenced to 10 years jail in 1993. He
was freed in February 2000 after serving two-thirds of his sentence.
Ellis called on Justice Minister Phil Goff in
February to launch a new inquiry into his convictions after the New Zealand
Law Journal highlighted flaws in the way his case was handled. Mr Goff said
earlier that two appeal courts and a former Chief Justice had considered the
convictions safe.
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