to the cancelled one. He further claimed that although Zelas' cluster evidence could be said to be wrong science, it was not so factually and scientifically flawed to undermine the verdicts. Supreme Court decision On 7 October 2022, the Supreme Court allowed the appeal and quashed Ellis' convictions. The Court unanimously found that there were problems with Karen Zelas' evidence, and that the jury had not been fairly informed of the risk of contamination of the children's evidence (for example through repeated parental questioning). The Court said its decision should not be taken "as a criticism of the parents, the complainants or those involved in the investigation and trial". This was the first time in New Zealand history that a conviction had been overturned posthumously. During the appeal, Ellis' lawyers, including Natalie Coates, had argued that the Court should overturn Ellis' conviction on the basis of Tikanga Māori (the customary rules which govern Māori life), arguing it gave him the right to clear his name and restore his mana (prestige) posthumously. Coates later said: "although tikanga had not been the deciding factor in the [Court's] decision, it had affirmed its relevance in the legal framework". The Supreme Court's decision was welcomed by Ellis' family and supporters as a vindication of several years of efforts to clear his name. By contrast, the parents of some of the alleged victims issued a statement expressing shock and sadness that the Court had allegedly favoured a convicted criminal and ignored the victims by quashing his convictions. Prominent support Lynley Hood's A City Possessed In 2001 Lynley Hood published a 616 page book about the case and the moral panic of sexual abuse within New Zealand at that time. In 2002 A City Possessed won the top prize for non-fiction and for readers' choice in the New Zealand Book Awards. As Hood tells it, fear and anxiety about ritual abuse began in childcare facilities overseas in the early 1980s. Given the number of sex abuse scenarios in Christchurch in the 1980s such as "the Glenelg Health Camp, Ward 24, and the Great Child Pornography fiascos – it was probable that some sort of panic would break out in Christchurch." Hood argued that the professional careers of experts benefited from the case while more than 100 children were subjected to unpleasant, repetitive and psychologically dangerous procedures for no good reason. A former National Party leader, Don