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Peter Hugh McGregor Ellis (born 30 March 1958) is a former Christchurch child care worker who has been at the centre of one of New Zealand's most enduring judicial controversies. In June 1993 Ellis was found guilty in the High Court on 16 counts of sexual offences involving children in his care at the Christchurch Civic Creche and was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment. His conviction has been strongly criticised, with concerns centering on how the children's testimony was obtained and presented to the jury. Ellis has always maintained his innocence and many New Zealanders have supported calls to overturn his convictions. In 1994, the Court of Appeal quashed convictions on three of the charges but upheld the sentence. His conviction and sentence were upheld for a second time in the Court of Appeal, in October 1999. Ellis was released in February 2000 after serving almost seven years in prison. In March 2000, Chief Justice Sir Thomas Eichelbaum conducted a ministerial inquiry reviewing the children's evidence. His report, which has been widely criticised, upheld the guilty verdicts. The same month Governor-General Sir Michael Hardie Boys rejected Ellis' third bid for pardon on the advice of Justice Minister Phil Goff, who was satisfied with the finding of former Chief Justice Sir Thomas Eichelbaum that Ellis had failed to prove his convictions were unsafe. Two books and numerous articles〔See http://www.peterellis.org.nz for reproductions of articles.〕 have been written about the case. Ellis continues to campaign to clear his name, in 2011 he announced intention to lodge a fourth petition for pardon with the Governor General. The case itself was a part of a slew of similar cases in the United States–known as the day care sexual abuse hysteria–a moral panic that originated out of California in 1982 and that existed throughout the 1980s. The hysteria, as well as Ellis' conviction, has also been cited as a major cause in the decline in the number of male teachers in New Zealand schools. 〔(【引用サイトリンク】 title= Schools `need to appeal to boys' )〕 ==Personal life== Ellis is the eldest of four children. His parents were teachers who separated when he was nine. He left school at the end of 1975 and went tobacco picking in Motueka. After two years overseas, he returned to New Zealand and spent some time unemployed. He had a part-time job in a bakery in the early 1980s which eventually became full-time. When he left this job and applied for an unemployment benefit, authorities discovered he had received dole payments to which he was not entitled. He was prosecuted and convicted in 1986 of "misleading a social welfare officer", and sentenced to 80 hours community service. In August 1986, Ellis carried out his community service at the Christchurch Civic Creche. His supervisor, Dora Reinfeld, later reported that "Peter ... provided some hilarious puppetry shows – one of which we had to abandon as staff and children 'got out of hand'". Ellis became a relieving worker, and Reinfeld's next monthly report said: "Peter Ellis has fitted in extremely well and puts lots of energy into programme planning. Fantastic team spirit". Ellis's pre-sentencing report said "The overall picture gained of Peter Ellis is that of an outgoing, uninhibited, unconventional person given to putting plenty of enthusiasm and energy into his work and social activities, sometimes to the point of being risqué and outrageous".〔R v Ellis () 1 NZLR 513〕 Before his imprisonment, Ellis had sexual relationships lasting for periods of two to five years with both men and women. He told Lynley Hood "In a relationship with a woman I was, for want of a better word, bisexual, and with a man I was monogamous". When working for the Civic Creche, Ellis was described by Hood as "blatantly homosexual".〔 In 2005, he suffered a heart attack and required hospitalisation. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Peter Ellis (childcare worker)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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