The grave of Peter Ellis, his mother and dog Florence. Photo: Alexander Behse
Childcare worker Peter Ellis's life changed forever after he was convicted of child sex offences which saw him spend seven years in prison.
Just over a year ago, the Supreme Court quashed all his convictions and found a “substantial miscarriage of justice", but it came too late for Ellis, who died of cancer in September 2019.
In the podcast Conviction: The Christchurch Civic Creche Case, we've looked at the controversial case anew by talking to many who've never spoken before, including those who spent time with him behind bars.
Listen to the podcast Conviction: The Christchurch Civic Creche Case
After Peter's death, I was given a banana box of photos, letters, court documents, newspaper clippings and so forth by his family.
I spent time reading a lot of letters sent by Peter to various people from prison and his time inside was of particular interest to me.
One that stood out to me was a four-page long letter sent to Peter's sister after his death.
My assumption was that a convicted sex offender and gay man would have found it hard to survive inside, but from my talks with Peter and Stephen, the prison chaplain, as well as others, this didn't appear to be the case for Peter.
Key art draws inspiration from the cover page of North & South magazine, November 2015, illustrated by Henrietta Harris. Courtesy North & South magazine. Photo: Trajan/RNZ
The regard with which one of Peter's former inmates held him is clear in the following extract. I have not included the author's name, to protect his privacy:
Peter Ellis first appeared on my TV while I was incarcerated in Paremoremo Maximum Security Prison. I didn't think too much about him until one day while I was doing my job as medical cleaner.
The news featured an item about the Christchurch Civic Creche case and the main block guy (a seriously heavy dude, as most of them were) said, "That poor f*****'s been set up."
I was quite gobsmacked by this. To the vast majority of inmates in this country's prisons any mention of crimes against children and they're immediately labelling the alleged perpetrator (guilty). But I didn't hear a single person in Pari Maxi say anything other than they thought the whole thing was complete and total bullshit.
After spending a number of years in Pari Maxi's Assessment Block I was finally given a transfer to Totara Unit, Rolleston Prison in May 1996. A couple of days after I arrived there I was given work in the unit kitchen.
As we were dishing out the evening meal on my first day I noticed an aloof, long-haired guy wearing eye shadow. Not something one sees every day whilst incarcerated. Over the next few days I kept hearing my fellow kitchen workers mention "Cindy Crawford," who was another of our fellow inmates.
So I asked a kitchen worker if that dude with the eye shadow was Cindy Crawford, and was rather surprised when he said it was in fact Peter Ellis.
Not too long after that I went to the unit library and Peter was there running it, sorting through some boxes of books. I ended up giving him a hand to go through them and put them in a sort of order on the shelves.
We became friends and I quickly became one of his inner circle as it were. This was the very first time in my life that I had a close friend who was gay.
After getting to know him a bit, Peter showed me one of the letters he was sending out to all and sundry. I was appalled at his indiscriminate use of CAPITAL LETTERS, heavy underlining, end words in bold and SOMETIMES ALL THREE. (Thank the gods that he didn't write in italics as well.)
I suggested subtle changes and typed out a passage from the letter so it looked as letters should look, without all of that bollocks. Peter wasn't too keen on the idea as he felt he needed to get his point across. I told him he didn't need all of the theatrics as the words spoke for themselves. In a short period of time Peter was writing draft letters, bringing them to me and I would reword some of it to change the tone of the letter.
A number of times when things were getting a bit too much for him Peter would come to my hut and I'd hold him while he cried on my shoulder.
What can you say in a situation like that? "There, there" and "it'll be all right" just don't seem to cut it somehow.
He even asked me on a number of occasions how I handled being locked up for so long. My only response to that is, "What's the alternative?"
I'm just glad I was able to offer him some comfort when things looked rather grim for him. At other times it was me going to him with my problems and fears, particularly about my kids, and Peter would help me through the hard times. I believe he helped me a hell of a lot more than I helped him, or so it seemed to me at the time...
Just after moving into Wesley Care (the end of Life unit Peter spent his last few weeks of life in), Peter texted me and told me he was there.
So I started visiting him and taking him little treats, like custard squares and lemonade. All the good stuff.
It was always so frustrating for me to see him in such pain. I just wanted to cuddle him and hold him tight, but I knew that if I did that I'd be causing him even more pain. And there was many the time when I wanted to completely swap places with him.
After all he'd been through to have to go through pain and suffering like that just tore my heart out. As I said to [my wife], "He's had a c*** of a life!" At least I was able to make some of it not so bad for him.
The last time I saw him, the Saturday before he passed, I gave him two ceramic dogs I'd got at the Eco Shop the day before. He expressed such joy at getting them it melted my heart once more.
• Follow and listen to Conviction: The Christchurch Civic Creche case on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart or wherever you get your podcasts.
