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The
Christchurch Civic Creche Case |
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Stress over a bid to
quash child-abuse convictions is likely to have contributed to Peter Ellis's
heart attack, his mother says. But Christchurch
Central MP Tim Barnett, who heads the select committee looking into the Civic
Creche case, has defended the 21 months so far taken to weigh the call for an
inquiry. Chest pain and sweats
struck Ellis, 47, while he was reading at home in North Canterbury on
Thursday night. Ash-grey and requiring
oxygen, he was rushed by ambulance to Christchurch Hospital. Last night he
remained seriously ill in the coronary care unit. Lesley Ellis was
startled when her son knocked on her bedroom door and said, "Mum, I'm
having a heart attack." She rang a neighbour,
who urged her to call 111. Two ambulances and a duty doctor attended. Peter Ellis
"flopped back on his bed and didn't move" as he waited for help. "I was a bit too
gobsmacked to know what was going on," Lesley Ellis said. It had been a draining
week for Peter Ellis, with the loss of two staunch supporters, relatives
Gordon and Mollie Seatter. The couple died naturally within a few days of
each other. He had attended their
combined funeral service on Thursday. Lesley Ellis believes
politicians added to her son's already serious health problems by drawing out
the decision on a commission of inquiry. Since November 2003,
when Peter Ellis was hospitalised with a serious infection that stemmed from
having a tooth out, his immune system has been depleted. Doctors have struggled
to combat the problem, placing him on what his mother described as a
bucketload of pills. "They have not got
him right. He sleeps most afternoons for a couple of hours and he is often
uncomfortable and achy," Lesley Ellis said. Delays over the fight to
clear his name have added to the stress, she said. A petition calling for
a top-level look at the creche case has been with the Justice and Electoral
Select Committee for 21 months. Chaired by Barnett, the
committee is inching towards making its recommendation to the Government. Lesley Ellis said that
in her view the petition's slow crawl through Parliament had helped cause her
son's first heart attack. "You wait all this
time and try and get something out of Tim Barnett and he's just skirting
round, skirting round and doesn't do anything," she said. "I feel
as if I'm looking over my shoulder for what's going to happen next." Barnett said yesterday
he understood the Ellis family's frustration, but a report on the petition
had required considerably more work than usual. "We're very aware
of the fact people are critical of the time we're taking," he said.
"We want a good, quality report and if it takes time, it takes
time." Other select committee
priorities had contributed to the delay, Barnett added. The creche report would
be finished before the election, hopefully by the end of July. Cardiac problems
feature in Peter Ellis's family. Both his grandfathers died of heart attacks
in their 40s. In 1993 the creche
staffer was found guilty of abusing seven children in his care (one
complainant later said she had lied, and the relevant convictions were
quashed). Ellis served two-thirds
of a 10-year jail sentence |
