Tireless CTV campaigner dies
A grandfather who doggedly fought for justice for his daughter and the fellow victims of the CTV building collapse was remembered as a ‘‘calm and wise man’’ after he died during the coronavirus lockdown.
Tim Elms spent years tirelessly campaigning for those behind the building’s flawed construction to be held accountable for their role in the tragedy.
His daughter, nurse Teresa McLean, 40, a mother of two young boys, was among the 115 people killed when the building collapsed in the February 2011 earthquake.
Elms often drove the 80 kilometres from his Hawarden home to the Canterbury Earthquakes Royal Commission of Inquiry hearings in 2012 to seek answers for what went wrong.
He died at the age of 75 on April 20 at Christchurch Hospital, leaving behind his wife Mavis, daughter Lesley and several grandchildren.
‘‘He kept his calm with all the pressure and stress and sadness that we had,’’ friend Maan Alkaisi told The Press .
‘‘As a man, wow, he was really something very special. He was always very calm and chose his words wisely.
‘‘I must say that I felt so sad [learning of his death]. He was a person that I called a dear friend.’’
In the wake of the tragedy the two men found in each other something of a kindred spirit, united by the shared grief of losing a loved one, in Alkaisi’s case his wife, Dr Maysoon Abbas.
‘‘I first met him at the royal commission hearing and we used to sit together,’’ Alkaisi said.
‘‘He used to carry a folder with him and he one day pointed to it and told me that he was collecting all this information to give to the boys when they grow up.
‘‘He said, ‘They are really very young and they will not understand what is going on, but the folder I will leave to them to understand’.’’
The two men forged a close friendship as they endlessly campaigned for justice, for buildings to be made safer and for lessons to be learned so such a tragedy would never happen again.
Elms was a founding member of the Quake Families Trust, later becoming chairman.
He also led the complaint the families submitted to Engineering New Zealand (ENZ) about the professional conduct of the CTV building’s designer, Alan Reay, Alkaisi said.
‘‘I contacted ENZ and told them about his passing away.
‘‘The chief executive, Susan FreemanGreene, said that me and Tim are always on her shoulder thinking about the way we fought for justice, because we have a case with ENZ that is not resolved yet. She thought highly of him.’’
Elms was heartbroken at the 2017 decision that police would not prosecute anyone over the collapse, saying there was ‘‘no outcome, no accountability’’.
‘‘As a father he loved his daughter and he felt so sad that she left two boys, very very young,’’ Alkaisi said. ‘‘One of them was only about 6 months old – just imagine the impact of that. That really hurt him, to the last month of his life.’’
The two men marked each anniversary of the tragedy, meeting with families of the Japanese victims of the building collapse every February 22 after the main memorial service.
Elms was unable to attend this year because of ill health but never stopped hoping for a breakthrough.
‘‘We rang during lockdown, he was asking me what happened – ‘Is there any news about any justice that we have managed to get?’,’’Alkaisi said. ‘‘He was a gentle man, very kind, a typical gentleman that you could rely on. And he had a great sense of humour – we laughed.
‘‘I sometimes used to just call him and talk about things, and chat for half an hour. I really miss him.’’
A memorial service will be held on July 16 at 2pm at the Wai-mana Chapel in Rangiora.