Matua Kahurangi
Just a bloke sharing thoughts on New Zealand and the world beyond. No fluff, just honest takes.
How does a vile, high-risk, sex offender like John Lindsay Ellis, a 79-year-old creep with a rap sheet of perversion, end up in emergency housing surrounded by families and children? The Ministry of Social Development (MSD) has blood on its hands for this disgusting oversight, and New Zealanders deserve answers. Where were the pre-checks? How could a predator like Ellis, who looks every bit the part of a sleazy, frail monster, be allowed to slither into a motel where kids were playing just metres away?
In 2023, Ellis, a wheelchair-bound degenerate, was living in an MSD-funded emergency housing motel in Auckland, a place where vulnerable families and children were also housed. This wasn’t some oversight in a chaotic system: this was a catastrophic failure of basic due diligence. Ellis, who pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting an adult and a four-year-old boy, was allowed to roam free in an environment ripe for his predatory instincts. The fact that MSD didn’t catch this before placing him there is nothing short of a scandal.
Ellis, hunched over in court last week, grimacing and clutching at a security officer’s hand like the manipulative creep he is, was sentenced in the High Court at Auckland. The Crown begged for preventive detention – a rare, indefinite prison term reserved for the worst of the worst – because Ellis is exactly that: a danger to society. But Justice David Johnstone, citing Ellis’ “infirmity”, opted for a measly three years and nine months. Three years for groping an adult worker and luring a toddler into his room to abuse him. Three years for shattering a family’s sense of safety. And MSD? They’re complicit in this horror show.
The details are sickening. Ellis hugged and groped an adult worker who was just doing his job, making him feel uneasy on multiple occasions before crossing the line. Then, a month later, he coaxed a four-year-old boy and his younger sister into his motel room from a nearby playground. Thank God another resident intervened, pulling the kids out before things got worse. Ellis even had the gall to admit he’d abused the boy and “got caught”, later confessing to police he’d done it before. This wasn’t a one-off: this was a pattern. And MSD let this monster slip through the cracks.
How does this happen? MSD is responsible for vetting who gets placed in emergency housing. Are we seriously meant to believe they couldn’t access Ellis’ criminal history? Government departments share information all the time – Police, Corrections, Oranga Tamariki. A basic background check would’ve flagged this predator from a mile away. Instead, MSD plonked him in a motel with kids running around, like tossing a shark into a kiddie pool. It’s not just negligence, it’s a betrayal of every vulnerable family relying on them.
The impact on the victims is heartbreaking. The boy’s mother spoke of her family’s devastation, the lasting trauma her son will carry. A four-year-old, violated because MSD couldn’t be bothered to do their job. The adult victim, just trying to earn a living, now carries the weight of being targeted by this creep. And what does MSD have to say for itself? Nothing. No apology, no explanation, just silence. They haven’t said a damn thing from what I have read.
This isn’t about one bad apple slipping through: it’s about a system that’s rotten. Emergency housing is meant to be a lifeline, not a hunting ground for perverts like Ellis. MSD needs to answer for this. Why aren’t background checks mandatory? Why isn’t there a hard line barring high-risk offenders from being housed near kids? And why the hell are we only hearing about this after the fact, when the damage is done?
Heads should roll.
This article was originally published on the author’s Substack.
