Later, Capill decided to become a minister, and studied towards a Bachelor of Divinity degree at the Reformed Theological College in Geelong, Australia.
In November 2004 Capill resigned from the Christian Heritage citing differences of opinion over the party's new direction since his retirement.
Within a year he had been moved to be a police prosecutor at the Christchurch District Court, but was stood down in early 2005 pending criminal charges.
On leaving the court he was assaulted ("punched and left whimpering on the ground") by local sickness beneficiary Daniel McNally, a former boxer.
[6] On 1 April 2005 name suppression was lifted and Capill pleaded guilty to a charge of indecently assaulting an eight-year-old girl on four occasions.
[10] On 28 June 2005 Capill entered guilty pleas on a further three charges of indecent assault, one of rape, and one of unlawful sexual connection, all committed against girls under the age of 12.
Concerns were raised that Capill's wife and children might be unfairly burdened by this latest development, due to his inability to earn income as a prisoner.
[13] On 3 October 2006, his successor, Ewen McQueen, announced the dissolution of Christian Heritage New Zealand, blaming Capill's conviction and disgrace for its demise.
[15] On 27 June 2008, it was reported that Capill's parole application had been unsuccessful due to opposition from his victims who felt there had been insufficient preventative counselling, and that the Department of Corrections and Rolleston Prison would not enroll him on Kia Marama, a child sexual abuse prevention education and counselling course, until he had served two-thirds of his sentence (circa 2011).
[16][17] He was granted parole in August 2011 after having completed the nine-month Kia Marama child-sex offenders programme[18][19][20] and having been "assessed as posing a low/medium long term risk of sexual reoffending".
He was required to report to a parole officer when dealing with accommodation and employment concerns and experienced restricted mobility and autonomy in those contexts.