Wexford parents’ for missing son
‘WE THOUGHT he was gone because three hours had gone by and still nothing,’ said the father of five-year-old Wexford boy Richard Roche of Coolcotts who went missing during a family day out in the People’s Park in Dun Laoghaire on Sunday afternoon, sparking a massive search by gardai, the Coastguard and a large number of volunteers.
Aidan Roche, who runs Brick, Block and Stone, said he and his wife Jill (nee Latimer), a Wexford County Council official, were frozen with fear after Jill’s mother Doris turned around and said ‘Richard is missing’.
The Educate Together School pupil had been playing on the swings in the People’s Park with his brothers Harry (13) and Hugh (11) and cousins and was being alternately watched by Jill and her brother Richard who lives in Dublin.
Richard and his wife Jennifer and children had met up with the Wexford family group in the Park.
‘I have a degree in sustainable architectural technology and I tried about 20 times to put a video of Richard up on Facebook but I couldn’t do it, I kept fumbling. My wife was the same. In the end, my sister Antoinette in Wexford put it up,’ said Aidan who was in another area of the park with his eight-year-old daughter Hannah minding his youngest child baby Ted, aged 16 months.
‘The gardai asked for a photograph of him but I wasn’t able to send it. I had to go to the garda station and give it to them.’
Aidan described the moment they realised that Richard was missing as ‘gut-wrenching’.
Family members travelled from Wexford to join in the search as Aidan and Jill searched the People’s Park with the help of staff and stall-holders and paced the seafront in Dun Laoghaire, showing passers-by a photo of their son and asking if they had seen him.
A Garda and Coastguard search were also launched after Jill’s sister-in-law raised the alarm.
‘No matter how vigilant you are or how closely you watch them, you can turn around and in a second they’re gone. I was totally confident that my wife and brother-in-law Richard were with him,’ said Aidan who had taken Richard and Hannah camping in Redcross in County