Ellis Whitehouse

Ellis Whitehouse is Chief Reporter at EssexLive and the Essex Chronicle and Brentwood Gazette where he covers a diverse range of topics and has made a name for himself with his court coverage. Since his reporting career began Ellis has always strived to be at the heart of Essex news, talking to as many people as he can, properly getting to know the area, and establishing a reputation as someone people can trust. While Ellis’ career at a local news level has progressed since 2016, what really thrust him into the news spotlight happened in December 2022, when a reality TV star stood trial for “revenge porn” charges.Celebrity Big Brother winner Stephen Bear’s trial in Chelmsford Crown Court was a lightning in a bottle court case. Ellis led a live blog from the prosecution opening of the trial, all the way to conviction a week later, which was read more than 200,000 times and had readers engaged for an average time of a minute. From Bear arriving in a Rolls Royce dressed in increasingly outlandish outfits, swearing in court, openly sharing his previous sexual partners, and his victim Georgia Harrison’s powerful witness testimony, the blog captured every breath of the trial and subsequent sentencing of Bear.

The live coverage proved a sensation; Ellis amassed more than a thousand new followers on X (formerly Twitter) with his live tweets accompanying the blog posts, and the audience kept coming back every day for the trial, hooked on what was happening. Ellis received praise from the prosecution team, senior police officers, and Georgia Harrison herself, who Ellis later interviewed ahead of an ITV documentary about the case, which also featured Ellis’ videos of Bear arriving at court, and some of the blog updates.

This is just one of many court cases Ellis has covered. He has live blogged murder trials, including being the only reporter there to witness the defendant breaking down in the dock, securing an exclusive on the sentencing of a former national newspaper editor, and publishing an in depth interview with a domestic abuse victim who bravely selected Ellis to tell her story. Ellis stayed in touch with the woman throughout the trial before sitting down with her for a lengthy interview about the horrible things that had been done to her - and the work she did to escape her abuser. Outside of court reporting, Ellis is always keen to hold authorities and public bodies to account. In another exclusive investigation, he broke the news that multiple ambulance staff members had been suspended following the discovery of inappropriate WhatsApp messages and after several months of collaboration between himself and colleague Matt Lee the investigation was published in full, and remains exclusive to this day.

Ellis also launched the EssexLive Court and Crime Newsletter which has amassed more than 18,000 subscribers within two years. He writes the fully authored newsletter every week giving a rundown of the crime incidents and court cases the team have covered.