Case 341: The Christchurch Civic Creche
Late in 1991, a child said something strange to his mother: ‘I don’t like Peter’s black penis.’ Believing this was an indication that her son was being abused by Peter Ellis, a 33-year-old employee at the Christchurch Civic Creche her son attended, the concerned mother quickly filed a report. The case would soon snowball into one of New Zealand’s biggest and most controversial criminal cases…
Team:
Anonymous Host - narration
Erin Munro - research, writing
Mike Migas - production, music
Anthony Telfer - audio editing
Comments (23)
What a crazy episode
Wait so it wasn’t til almost the end of the episode it started to click that it was all fake and made up? But I’m confused bc the children as grownups still claim it was all real? So what’s the conclusion?
This almost exactly mirrors Indictment: The McMartin Trial https://share.google/v7IMLKQLXG17cslA0. A film starring James Wood. My daughter works in childcare and is told "children never lie" how preposterous.
Good episode. But, it was essentially spoiled at the very beginning given the content warning…
Great point, but perhaps this is your first experience with an episode like this. Any episodes that have content related to crimes against children often have a more specific content warning. This is the same for all previous episodes with this kind of content!
Who the hell was responsible for the kids pseudonyms? wtf kind of name is Bart Dogwood
LMAO!
This case reminded of the brilliant movie, 'The Hunt' (2012) starring Mads Mikkelson.
Same
Pretty amazed that everyone is so adamant that children could enmasse, make up the same abuse stories. Have you been listening to any of the adult abuse stories coming out of Kings Cross or the Barnett Lady who accused Nicole Kidman's father?
I think the issue here is the children’s parents were told not to discuss this with other parents and they did. And so the stories grew. It can easily happen if you prompt children I.e. “did X do (thing you heard about) to you?” Ask enough times and the child decides you want to hear a yes.
Does Erin happen to have a background in psychology / criminology / forensic behavioural science? She does the kind of analyses and deep dives I could see myself doing if I wrote for casefile. I love the framework she writes from. Always scratches my behavioural science itch!
Bloody shameful how NZ fell victim to American-made moral panic. Unrelated but even more shameful is that our former deputy police commisioner was found guilty on possessing CSAM and beastiality material.
Agreed. I hadn’t heard of this case before, even tho I’ve lived in NZ over a decade. I must say I find ChCh very conservative. Still - this is nuts!
Man, this is like Salem!
Reminds me of the “Satanic Panic” that got so out of hand here in the U.S. in the 1980’s. Hindsight points up how ridiculously absurd most of it was.
And yet here we are in the era of the Epstien files.
This was insane.
Haven't listened to it yet but the thought of a Casefile episode with crèche in the title is making me queasy
I remember this case quite well, as I was living in neighboring Alababerdeen at the time. (Sorry, been listening to a bunch of Fascinating Horror compilations and can't shake the bloody posh accent. Much better than when I'm binging The Ravens Eye on YT and go around sounding like a scheming chancellor whispering evil words into the king's ear...)
What….?
I think this is the first time I have ever gasped out loud when I got a Casefile notification (I am from Christchurch). Can’t wait to listen to this later.
Same here! It was a big case back in the day. I also remember 'Casey' (the host) having visited Christchurch before in the last 4 years or so. So funny hearing him say "Chris*t*church" 🤣