Dominatrix tells of 'bad feelings'

Renee Chigwell (R) has broken her 20-year-silence about the Huka Falls scandal involving cricket umpire Peter Plumley-Walker (top) and her then-boyfriend Neville Walker. Photos / Herald file, supplied

The "dominatrix" involved in one of New Zealand's most notorious murder cases - the bondage and discipline death of cricket umpire Peter Plumley-Walker - has spoken publicly for the first time about the night's events and revealed she is now a caregiver for the elderly.

In a candid tell-all interview with Metro magazine, Renee Chignell, now 39 and a mum of a 15-year-old son, says she had bad feelings about Plumley-Walker from the moment he appeared at her front door of her rented Remuera house in 1989.

"It was his eyes. He had very intense eyes. I remember feeling with Plumley-Walker that he was more than I could handle.

"I had this instinct of 'I don't want to be here' but it was my home.

"And I felt because he had paid $170 for the session, I had to complete it."

Chignell, who spent about two years in prison before finally being acquitted of murder at a third trial, told Metro that Plumley-Walker wanted to be punished for what he had done to children, and claimed that he had abused girls. Chignell said she did not think it was a fantasy.

After tying him up, she left Plumley-Walker alone in the room of the makeshift bondage and discipline chamber for about 20 minutes while she and her then boyfriend, Neville Walker, had a coffee and cigarette.

When she returned, he was unconscious.

"Plumley-Walker's lips were blue. I just felt utter, utter dread," Chignell told Metro.

She says she regrets the pair didn't call the police then. Instead, they drove him to Huka Falls and hurled his body over the edge.

"I cried most of the way about what had happened and what we would say when we got called in."

Chignell is single and now works as a part-time caregiver for the elderly in the Bay of Islands. The father of her son was killed in a car crash when she was pregnant.

She says she was never cut out to be a dominatrix. "Some of my clients wouldn't go with me any more because I'd give them five whips each side and then I'd be rubbing their bums, saying 'Are you all right, are you all right?"'

She also talks about her violent, year-long relationship with Walker and how she found police officer John Dewar "slimy" - she claims he leered at her and called her a "nice bit of crumpet" but Dewar rejects the accusation - and how she came to be in the sex industry.

* Metro magazine, on sale from tomorrow.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY