Sisters killed by dad
Tiffany Bristol, 7, and her sisters Holly, 3, and Claudia, 18 months, were killed by their father in Whanganui on the night of February 4, 1994. Their mother, Christine, had endured violence for years, but never thought her husband would harm their daught
Christine Bristol thought she would be the one to die at the hands of her husband.
The thought of him laying a hand on their three girls never crossed her mind.
‘‘I thought he would do it to me, I was prepared for that, he had been so nasty.’’
However, 22 years ago, Alan Bristol got Tiffany Anne, 7, Holly Alyse, 3, and Claudia Abby, 18 months, out of their beds and put them in the back of his car.
He sat in the front seat, closed the doors, and started the engine.
The girls’ death shocked the Whanganui community, with people unaware of the violence Christine had endured in the years prior to her children’s deaths.
‘‘A lot of things they didn’t know, because it was behind closed doors.
‘‘Does he have ‘domestic violence’ tattooed on his forehead, how can you tell? It’s across the range.’’
‘HEADSTRONG’ GIRLS
Christine Bristol still remembers every detail about her girls, with each one having their own unique personality.
‘‘They were all quite headstrong, knew what they wanted to do, and would just go and do it.’’
Tiffany was the only one of the girls to reach school.
‘‘Tiffany was a good student, very good, excelled. She made friends easily ... Both male and female she always had little boyfriends.’’ Holly was the cheeky one. ‘‘She could climb like hell ... She had a wicked lisp,’’ her mum said.
‘‘She had tomato sauce on everything, including roasts.’’
The youngest of the trio, Claudia, spent most of her time trying to keep up with her older sisters.
She took after her big sister Holly and was a thumb-sucker.
‘‘Orthodontist bills would have been huge.’’
But braces were just one of many things the girls missed out on.
‘‘They will never graduate, make successes of themselves, get married, and have children of their own.’’
A DIFFICULT RELATIONSHIP
Alan and Christine Bristol met when she was 21. They lived in a group of flats near each other in Whanganui.
Initially, when she fell pregnant with Tiffany, he suspected it was someone else’s child.
‘‘I moved out on my own for a while, because I couldn’t handle it.’’
She was hospitalised for a few days while pregnant, and Alan Bristol stayed with her, with the pair getting back together after that. They married when she was 25. But when Tiffany was 6 months old, Christine
Bristol discovered her new husband was having an affair, so she moved out of their home again. It was just one of many times she would leave.
‘‘[There were] lots of terrible times, really. We should never have met.
‘‘But I was deeply in love with him and I guess it was the same, because we kept going back and forward together, like a magnet, really.’’
Emotional and physical abuse followed, and she was forced to leave one night after he beat and raped her, dumping her at her father’s house when she was too weak to fight him any longer.
Claudia was only 8 months old at the time.
Bristol said they tried to work out custody themselves, but eventually it was taken through court.
At the time of the girls’ death, their father had been granted interim custody by a replacement judge.
‘‘So this other judge came in and made a sweeping decision, which had its consequences, obviously.’’
As the weeks went by, he kept the children away from their mother, unless she would succumb to what he wanted. Then, on February 3, he indecently assaulted her in front of their children.
He pinned her up against a wall, gouging her with her own car keys. She fought back, but he would not give her keys back until she begged.
All three of the children witnessed the assault, but their eldest daughter Tiffany showed no emotion.
‘‘I think about the last 12 months Alan was manipulating her psychologically a lot and alienating her against me.
‘‘Poor old Tiffany saw a lot of it, she saw a hell of a lot of it.’’
That was the last time she saw any of her girls alive.
When she arrived home, her flatmate, a policeman, convinced her to press charges.
‘‘I wasn’t being believed until this happened - and that’s being believed by the police. I was really, really hurt that they would believe him over me.
‘‘I was a victim trying to prove I was a victim, because he was from a wealthy, astute family, he was a businessman.’’
However, this time around, he was arrested and charged for indecent assault. He then went home, and killed himself and the girls.
Christine Bristol
REMEMBERING DAUGHTERS HER
The girls were buried alongside their favourite teddy bears and Barbie dolls wearing wedding dresses.
‘‘They all had pieces of jewellery on from me, and letters and photos from me.’’
The three girls were buried in Whanganui in a plot next to their father, something Christine Bristol said a lot of people didn’t understand.
‘‘He is their father and they were all conceived in love.
‘‘What’s done is done, you can’t undo it.
‘‘It just rests easy with me that they are all together.’’
In the plot there is space for her too.
‘‘I haven’t decided either way, but the option is there.’’
Dealing with what happened was not easy.
‘‘It was so surreal for a long time ... I didn’t know what to do. I felt if I didn’t talk about it, it would be swept under the carpet. But by talking about it, people could take something from it to change their point of view.’’
DEATHS CHANGE PROMPT
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LAW
After the deaths of her children, Christine Bristol became a campaigner for change, and in 1995, the law was revised to boost protection of children in custody disputes, where violence was alleged.
‘‘There wasn’t protection orders before, we only had nonmolestation orders and nonviolence orders, so I changed a lot of stuff.
‘‘I think our laws got so archaic something had to happen and, unfortunately, we were the role models for change.’’
However, she thought things still needed to develop, including teaching school children about domestic violence so children learnt the signs at an earlier age.
Now 53, Christine Bristol lives in rural Waikato and has been married to her husband Dean for 16 years.
In a poignant twist, Dean also has three daughters, all of similar ages to her own girls.
If they were alive today, Tiffany would be 29, Holly 25 and Claudia 23; her stepdaughters are Jayde, 29, Alexa, 27, and Zara, 22.
‘‘With the stepchildren, I’ve been lucky enough to have them longer. They are very, very special.
‘‘Zara was born five days after the girls died,’’ she added.
She also had been blessed with grandchildren, including 18-month-old Holly, named after Christine Bristol’s daughter.
‘‘Children are precious, I would have loved to have had more children.’’
She still suffers from posttraumatic stress disorder and takes medication for depression, but she said she had continued to live her life the best she could.
‘‘I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction, he’s taken the most precious things from me, I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction that he won.
‘‘Life is worth living, you can’t take away the memories.’’