Dear New Zealand Police,

On 11 May 2009, the Justice Ministry provided the Minister of Justice with advice related to the Peter Ellis case. This advice can be found here:

https://www.beehive.govt.nz/sites/all/fi...

I refer to paragraph 24 of the Ministry’s advice. The Ministry says it has “initiated enquiries with the Police and Christchurch High Court” about the existence of videotaped interviews of children caught up in the Ellis case.

Please provide me with all communication and information from the Justice Ministry to the Police, and from the Police to the Justice Ministry, regarding their enquiries into the existence of those videotaped interviews.

Has each videotaped interview of children caught up in the Ellis case been retained by Police? If not, how many videotaped interviews have been destroyed?

When are children’s videotaped interviews generally destroyed and what is the purpose of their destruction?

Please contact me if you have any queries regarding this request.

Yours faithfully,

Ross Francis