More victims likely
One of the strongest memories Trish Roigard has of her halfbrother are his dark, empty eyes.
‘‘It was like they were soulless. There was nothing behind the eyes,’’ she said.
The South Taranaki woman is talking about David Noel Roigard – a man convicted of murdering his son in cold blood in June 2014, and more recently of historical child sexual abuse.
At the age of 51, David Roigard was sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum non-parole period of 19 years, for murdering his 27-year-old son Aaron, a violent crime motivated by a desire to cover up the fact he had stolen more than $66,000 from him.
Despite extensive searches, the father-of-two’s body has never been found.
Last month, David Roigard was handed down a three-anda-half year jail sentence after being found guilty of five charges of indecent assault on a girl under 12, offending committed in the early 1980s in Taranaki when he was in his late teens.
He was acquitted of one indecent assault charge following the jury trial in the Whanganui District Court. The case involved two female complainants.
At the sentencing hearing, Trish Roigard took a rare step and successfully applied to the court to have the automatic name suppression gifted to her as one of the sex abuse complainants lifted so she could speak out about her experiences, with the hope it will encourage others to do so as well.
At previous court hearings, David Roigard’s offending had been described as calculating, cruel and callous.
Trish Roigard added another two adjectives to describe her sibling, ‘‘narcissistic psychopath’’, and said she believed there could be more of his victims who hadn’t come forward.
The half-siblings share the same mother and David was formally adopted and given the Roigard surname by Trish’s father.
She believed things started to go wrong when David Roigard found out he had been adopted.
She said he constantly ran away from home and begun to steal and commit burglaries.
He was enlisted in the army to straighten him out, but this failed.
‘‘I think that anger over the years has just built up. It’s almost like he wants to punish the world.’’
With David Roigard’s history of dishonesty, the sexual abuse offending committed at 19 and then his murder conviction in his early 50s, Trish Roigard believed there were other people he had hurt along the way.
‘‘I don’t believe he went for 30 years being a good boy before he killed his son.’’
It wasn’t until she attended David Roigard’s four-week murder trial in the High Court at New Plymouth in late 2015 that she decided to speak up about her own abuse experiences.
‘‘I went for years and years not talking about it,’’ she said.
Her story is what drives her newly established role as a survivor advocate.
She wants to walk alongside people who are looking for the same justice and peace she has now managed to find for herself.
While she wanted to hear from any other victims of David Roigard, she was happy to help people who might have suffered at another’s hand too.
‘‘I know it can be a very lonely road sometimes. You doubt yourself and how you’re feeling,’’ she said.
David Roigard, who is due to appeal his murder conviction and sentence in July, has refused two interview requests by Stuff since he was jailed for his son’s murder.
Trish Roigard believed it would be a ‘‘waste of her breath’’ to talk to her halfbrother about what he had done but she felt she had taken back the control he once held over her. ‘‘He’s locked up and I’m free.’’