Killer's ex tells of fight to keep children safe

By JAMES GARDINER

A woman who fought to keep her daughter away from convicted child killer Bruce Howse says she was forced to flout a court order and hide the girl for two weeks while being hounded by police and threatened with kidnapping charges.

No one knew better than Gillian Holdem what Howse was capable of.

She fell in love with him at age 15, had five children to him and lost as many teeth from his beatings.

His jealousy knew no bounds. After he saw her talking to a man they both knew, he deliberately drove the family car into a power pole, jumping clear himself before the impact, which sent Miss Holdem and their 3-year-old son to hospital.

Their relationship ended 13 years ago when he bashed their only daughter, a toddler, giving her a black eye. It was not the first time he had hurt the child - and it would not be the last.

Though Howse left, Miss Holdem's battles with him over custody of the children continued until late last year when he was locked up.

Although he had found a new partner, he threatened to kill Miss Holdem if she dared to go out with anyone else. She took the threat seriously.

Howse, 40, was this week found guilty of murdering his stepdaughters Saliel Aplin, 12, and Olympia Jetson, 11, by stabbing them as they slept in their Masterton home last December.

He tried to blame their mother, his partner Charlene Aplin, but a High Court jury decided he had killed the girls in an attempt to prevent them accusing him of sex abuse.

The case has sparked inquiries by the Child, Youth and Family Services Department and the Commissioner for Children into how social workers and other agencies dealt with the two families Howse brutalised and preyed on.

Miss Aplin, who had two children to Howse as well as five others, blamed department social workers but Miss Holdem, 37, said the Family Court and its child psychologists should come under scrutiny.

Her efforts to keep her children, particularly their daughter, from Howse were in vain. At various times he gained custody of all but the youngest son as judges and psychologists changed their minds, based on what the children said they wanted and claims by Howse that he was able to provide a stable home life.

Those claims, as Miss Holdem knew from bitter experience, were lies, as were the promises he made the children.

"He's a manipulator," she said. "He's such a convincing liar. People have believed him, that's the problem. I started church when we split up and the minister sided with him. Our minister did a letter that got him out of prison for that kidnapping."

That kidnapping was in 1991, when Howse and his brother Peter, also a convicted murderer, snatched a 17-year-old with the intention of raping her, until she got away.

Bruce Howse co-operated with police and received a non-custodial sentence; Peter Howse was jailed for two years but is now serving a preventive detention sentence for a series of rapes and sex attacks.

Miss Holdem kept Howse away from their daughter until 1998 when a Family Court judge decided to try what he called "an experiment" with the girl, then 12, who had expressed a desire to live with her father and older brothers.

He granted custody to Howse against Miss Holdem's objections. Twelve weeks later the girl was home for Christmas, saying Howse had hit her and she did not want to go back.

"I rang CYFS, I rang the kids' lawyer; the courts were closed and they all told me not to let her go back."

For two weeks she hid her daughter with family in Auckland. Police threatened to charge her with kidnapping and searched her friends' homes in the middle of the night.

"When I got a court date I got her back and won custody. That was his last contact with her."

When she first learned of the girls' murders, she was told it was her own sons who had been stabbed to death.

Having found out that wasn't the case, she went to Masterton to see her boys, already convinced that Howse was the killer.

"I spoke to a senior sergeant. I told him, 'Don't let him get away with it'."