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Dominion Post
August 26 2003
Creche boy's story disputed
by David McLoughlin
Former
daycare worker Peter Ellis did not start work at the Christchurch Civic
Creche till almost a year after a young man claiming he was abused there had
left.
Twenty-two-year-old Nathan, who attended the creche in late 1985, said
yesterday that Mr Ellis and other staff sexually abused him during his short
time there.
But former Civic supervisor Gaye Davidson, one of four women creche staff
arrested with Mr Ellis in 1992 on charges of abusing children, said last
night that Mr Ellis did not start working at the Civic till August 1986 and
had no contact at all with the creche before then. She believed the
allegations by Nathan were behind the police wanting to interview her and Mr
Ellis last year about fresh charges of abuse.
Mr Ellis was convicted in 1993 of 16 charges of abusing children at the Civic
and served seven years of a 10-year sentence, always protesting his
innocence. Ms Davidson and her three women colleagues were discharged before
the trial, though they faced charges similar to those Ellis was convicted of,
concerning some of the same children.
Nathan is the third former Civic child to have gone public this month saying
Mr Ellis and others abused him, though allegations about him did not form
part of the original case.
His mother said she had considered a private prosecution against Mr Ellis
after police declined to take up his case, but that was on hold because of
the cost.
The former Civic children have gone public on the eve of a parliamentary
select committee's preparing to hear submissions on a petition signed by 140
prominent New Zealanders calling for a royal commission to inquire into a
possible miscarriage of justice in the case.
Some former Civic children have retracted allegations they made against
Ellis, including one who signed the petition.
Nathan and his mother said that police told them Mr Ellis was hanging about
the Civic before August 1986, but Ms Davidson and other staff said last night
that was wrong.
Ms Davidson said his first appearance there was in August 1986 on a community
service scheme he served for a minor benefit fraud conviction. He went on to
become a full-time worker.
Asked if any male worked at the Civic when Nathan was there, she said one was
there briefly about the time she started in 1984, but he looked nothing like
Mr Ellis and she did not think he was still there in late 1985.
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