Daughters tell court of violent years

Christine King and her two eldest daughters endured years of domestic family violence and intimidation while growing up with Wayne Roycroft, which included him using a gun to take pot-shots at one daughter and forcing another, aged 10, to weed the garden until 11pm.

That evidence came out yesterday in the Hamilton High Court as King's defence lawyers opened their case and put King's two daughters, whose names are suppressed, in the witness box.

King is facing a murder charge for crushing 48 sleeping pills into Roycroft's food in 1988, which allegedly led to his death.

The daughters are now aged in their early 30s, but both described a harrowing cycle of violence and drunkenness at the hands of Roycroft while living with him in their early years.

The elder of the two gave a tearful account of a series of incidents, as her mother also sobbed at the back of the courtroom.

She said while living at Taupiri at the age of 10 she was forced to weed the garden until 11pm. At another address the girls were forced by Roycroft to stay in a tin shed while their mother went out to work for the day.

The elder daughter described not eating her peas after a KFC meal had been bought. Roycroft responded by throwing her around the room, she said.

Both daughters gave slightly different accounts of Roycroft throwing King down some stairs when she was pregnant. The fall smashed her teeth, the girls said.

The younger daughter later told the court that Roycroft possessed a gun and once took pot-shots at her outside.

When she entered her teenage years he began calling her slutty and dirty, she told defence counsel Tom Sutcliffe.

During cross-examination Crown prosecutor Ross Douch put to the elder daughter that she was over-stating the level of domestic violence, which she denied.

Earlier in the opening, co-counsel Judith Ablett Kerr said the defence case would focus on whether there was murderous intent at the time the pills were given to Roycroft.

King's position was that she did not intend to kill, nor did she have any idea that 48 sleeping tablets would result in Roycroft's death.

Mrs Ablett Kerr said several more witnesses would be called next week. They included a scientist, who would testify that 48 sleeping pills would not ordinarily kill someone "on their own".

The case

* Christine King is charged with murdering her husband Wayne Roycroft in 1988.
* The prosecution says she crushed 48 sleeping pills into his food and buried his body under the verandah.
* Later, according to the prosecution, she dug up the decomposing body and threw it on a bonfire in the backyard
* The defence, which began yesterday, says King and her daughters endured years of abuse and intimidation from Roycroft.