KEY POINTS:
The 13-year-old son of the death-faker has a simple question for him: "why?"
The boy, who was 7 when his father disappeared, said he could not understand why, if his father didn't love them, he didn't just say so and leave.
"Why didn't he just leave without setting up all of the fake names and everything. Just tell us he was leaving. It would have been easier."
The boy, who joined in on the Herald's interview with his mother, built a grave for his father in their backyard after his disappearance, covering it with pebbles and building a cross.
He had memories of the extensive police search for his father and recalled how they eventually "gave up".
He took part in a funeral service where he wrote a letter and posted it out to sea at the Port Waikato Beach where his father was last seen.
The boy still has a puzzle completed with his father on his bedroom wall.
He went through a series of family photos taken since the disappearance that his father had "missed".
The man has not had any contact with the boy since his deception was uncovered except for a letter the woman initially kept from him because she believed it was "bullshit". Having read it, she said the boy agreed.
The woman said the question "why?" had kept coming up.
"I've had the same question over and over. I've got no answers for my children."
