KEY POINTS:
The story of Waiheke's only sex shop epitomises the downward spiral Lindsay Rowles' life has taken.
Rowles and his wife Tania took over the Bedrock sex shop in April, nearly a year after their two children, Erina, 8, and Travis, 5, died in a boating tragedy for which Rowles has accepted responsibility.
Buying Bedrock seemed like a new beginning after a rough year. The couple had been racked by guilt and Tania was haunted by the memories of her children screaming for help as the aluminium boat plunged into the waters of the Hauraki Gulf in the middle of the night.
On Bedrock's opening day a usually unadorned Tania stood behind the bright pink counter - her hair newly tinted and styled - beaming at a garish selection of sex aids and kinky toys, lacy stockings, jewellery, dress-up outfits and a human-sized cage.
It didn't matter that neither of the couple knew how to use the Eftpos machine or the bright pink computer nearby. This was their chance to put it all behind them.
Lindsay Rowles, 54, said he would never be running a sex shop if his two children were alive.
But the subject of the lost children was never far away. In a room next door to the shop were several framed photographs of Erina and Travis.
"The children were lost because of me, because I was the one who took them out on the water," he said that day. "Onwards and upwards, one day at a time."
Handing out the new Bedrock business cards advertising "lingerie, fetishwear, party pills" he added: "We've cracked it."
But Rowles' enthusiasm for his new venture was shortlived. Just like the boat trip that went so horribly wrong, the sex shop foundered. Within weeks it was closed. Landlord Dick Thompson had locked Rowles out and nailed a trespass notice to the door.
Now the new owner, Dale Bigwood, is renovating and restocking the shop ready to relaunch the business as Fantasy Island in the new year.
Thompson now wishes he had never agreed to Rowles as a tenant, claiming his health and personal relationship has suffered and that he was out of pocket by $20,000.
Rowles began demolishing internal walls and was drinking heavily while half living at the shop, Thompson said.
When Rowles left he took the stock with him but left behind a pile of rubbish and empty beer bottles that cost Thompson $2000 to get rid of.
Depending who you talk to, Rowles bought the sex shop and rights to the R18 licence for between $85,000 and $120,000. The money came from the sale of his mother's house, a Devonport villa he inherited after she died.
One previous owner, Phil Tarr, would not confirm the amount but said Rowles had paid in full.
Colleagues say Rowles' downward spiral began before his children died. Once a talented electrical fitter in the marine industry, including five years with the Navy, his behaviour became more erratic at the Devonport house. Neighbours witnessed loud partying and drinking, mounting rubbish and blankets draped across windows.
Rowles began spending money - a BMW, a spa pool and the ill-fated 6.7m boat - money which one friend thinks he borrowed against the house.
One Devonport local said she often saw Rowles staggering out of bars and once saw him make an embarrassing scene at the opening of a hand-blown glass exhibition at an art gallery.
In February last year, he grabbed a pet mouse from the cleavage of a woman walking along the street and lowered the animal into his mouth. By the time he flicked it back into her hand, the mouse was dead.
Rowles pleaded guilty to charges of cruelty to an animal and offensive behaviour relating to the incident, as well as unrelated drink-driving, drug and disorderly behaviour charges.
Last month he was sentenced to 180 hours' community work for the offences and 12 months' supervision, disqualified from driving for 12 months and ordered to undergo drug and alcohol counselling. This month he was sentenced to a further 250 hours of community work after pleading guilty to operating a vessel causing unnecessary danger or risk under the Maritime Transport Act.
On the day of the tragedy Rowles had been drinking with friends on board at Waiheke and later went ashore to eat at the RSA, where the group drank more.
Later that night they took the boat out to fish at the Needles and Tarahiki Island after buying more alcohol at a liquor store.
It was around 2am on Anzac Day when the group realised the boat was sinking fast. Investigators believe a missing bung caused water to seep into the boat's bilges. Once they filled up the boat quickly sank.
A panicking Tania Rowles tried frantically to pull her two children, who had been sleeping using their life jackets for pillows, out of the cabin.
Now she suffers nightmares - of the dark, the freezing water and her children screaming, "Mummy, help us mummy".
She remembers hitting her head hard when the boat lurched and the children were wrenched from her grasp. The group floundered in the water, repeatedly calling to the children and diving to try to find the boat before clambering on to rocks to wait for rescuers.
There are times when Tania blames herself for the child-ren's deaths,
wishing that she had held on to them more tightly.
She says she has been to hell and back, that sometimes she wishes she too had died that night.
A family friend said Rowles was relieved at his sentence, that he had expected to go to jail. Since the accident he had lost weight and had been drinking heavily, she said. There was little sign now of the big, loud man who loved to sing and belt out a tune on his guitar, of the showman who loved to perform as long as he had an audience.
These days Tania and Lindsay Rowles live in a rundown rented house at Little Oneroa. The bottom half of a naked female dummy is propped up on the deck outside.
There is little sign of the $625,000 Rowles got when he sold his mother's villa in December last year.
One friend thinks Rowles had to repay money lent against the house and has lost or spent the rest, including the payment for the sex shop and a second boat he bought after moving to Waiheke.
When the Herald on Sunday called at the house last week, neither Tania nor Lindsay wanted to talk. "It's over," Lindsay said. "I want to be left alone."
- Alice Hudson
