Sarah Ristevski gives ‘glowing’ reference for wife-killing dad
Sarah Ristevski is standing by her father Borce, calling him “loving, caring, sympathetic” and detailing his pain in a glowing character reference to try to get him a reduced jail term for killing her mother, Karen. It comes as her family slammed the killer, claiming he turned his daughter against them. READ HER STATEMENT
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Sarah Ristevski is standing by her father, calling him “loving, caring, sympathetic” in a glowing character reference to try to get him a reduced jail term for killing her mother.
The 23-year-old student said in her written reference, tendered to the Supreme Court on Wednesday, that she visited her father, Borce, in prison weekly, and talked to him on the phone at least twice a day.
This is despite his admission that he killed her mother, his wife of 27 years, at the family’s Avondale Heights home on June 29, 2016.
READ MORE: KILLER’S TWISTED GRAVE PLOT
“All I can try to do is communicate the truth of how good of a dad and husband he was to my mum and I,” Sarah said in the reference.
“Growing up as a family, my mum, dad and I were completely inseparable. We would spend all of our spare time together and family was everything to us.
“The love they had for each other and the marriage that they shared is something I hope to one day experience myself,” she said.
SARAH RISTEVSKI’S REFERENCE
She said that her father, who is now facing a sentence of up to 20 years behind bars after pleading guilty to manslaughter on the eve of his trial earlier this month, was “always someone that people could look up to and respect”.
Sarah, who was not in court on Wednesday, said in her statement: “If I could use a few words to describe my dad’s personality it would be loving, caring, sympathetic, protective and charismatic.”
She said “the circumstances” — her father’s killing of her mother — had left her without both parents.
Her character reference was dated March 18, five days after her father pleaded guilty to his wife’s manslaughter.
She detailed his pain and how “since the act of violence”, he had “experienced job loss, a loss of respect within the community and the loss of close long-term friendships”.
She never referred to the loss of her mother, and the court heard she had refused a police offer to provide a victim impact statement.
Defence counsel David Hallowes, SC, relied on the reference, which Justice Christopher Beale called “glowing”, to highlight his client’s “good character” and positive contribution to society.
But there was no mention of any remorse or any explanation of how Karen died.
Mr Hallowes said Ristevski deserved a significant sentencing discount for his guilty plea, pointing out that he had offered it last September, when prosecutors rejected it.
He conceded Ristevski’s disposal of his wife’s body and lies aggravated his crime. But he said it should be considered in the “mid-range” of seriousness for manslaughter.
But prosecutor Brendan Kissane, QC, argued that Ristevski’s crimes were rather at the higher end of the scale of seriousness for the crime.
Describing it as “one of the worst examples of domestic violence”, he said: “He has failed to reveal what went on in the house. The fact he hasn’t given an explanation doesn’t suddenly mean his offence ends up in the middle.
“To date, only one person knows how and why Karen Ristevski was killed — and that is the prisoner,” he said.
When Ristevski reported his wife missing on June 30, 2016, he detailed what she was wearing and what he said were her last words, that she was going to clear her head.
“That was all lies. The prisoner had in fact killed her 24 hours earlier. He changed his story … he misled police and deliberately lied about his movements on that day,” Mr Kissane said.
“Significantly, he continued to mislead and lie to Sarah.”
Ristevski’s appearance at the Supreme Court on Wednesday was his first since his shock March 13 confession, on the eve of his five-week trial.
His confession ended an almost three-year mystery, but contradicted his insistence that Karen had walked out of their home after a fight over money.
Ristevski was the prime suspect but always maintained his innocence as police bugged his home and tapped his phone.
After Justice Beale ruled the prosecution could not use Ristevski’s conduct after Karen’s death — such as putting her body in a car boot and dumping it near Mt Macedon — to prove he had intended to kill her, a fresh indictment of manslaughter was filed.
Asked how he pleaded to the lesser charge, Ristevski then declared: “Guilty.”
Ristevski, who wore a surgical mask in court on Wednesday because of an influenza A breakout in jail, is due to be sentenced on April 18.
GRIEVING FAMILY LASHES KILLER
Borce Ristevski stared at his slain wife’s brother with eyes full of hatred and anger.
It was just moments after he he’d finally admitted killing his wife, Karen. Her younger brother, Stephen Williams, had rushed to the Supreme Court to hear the shock confession.
When Mr Williams turned in his seat in the back row of the courtroom to face his sister’s killer in the dock, just metres away, he expected to see regret and remorse from the man he had considered a brother.
But he saw none.
“All I got was him staring back at me, with only anger and hatred in his eyes,” he said.
On that day, March 13, Mr Williams was the only member of Karen’s family in court.
On Wednesday, as Ristevski returned to the dock for the first time since his 11th-hour guilty plea to manslaughter, Mr Williams was no longer alone.
But Ristevski’s demeanour was no different. Marched into court by custody officers at 10.23am, remorse still did not show in his haggard face.
He displayed little emotion as Karen’s family faced him to read out statements describing how his actions had changed their lives forever.
A plastic cup of water and a box of tissues sitting nearby were not reached for.
Remorse, his lawyer said later, was not being relied on as a mitigating factor.
And there would be no inkling of what really happened within the walls of the Ristevski home in Avondale Heights on the morning of June 29, 2016.
Confirmation of this added salt to the wounds of Karen’s grief-stricken family, who are left only with their nightmare imaginings of the pain and fear she felt in her last moments.
“I pray that it was quick but unfortunately, I will never know,” Karen’s cousin, Stephen Richardson, said in his statement.
Fighting back tears, Karen’s aunt, Patricia Gray, said Ristevski’s crimes were “too great for forgiveness”.
She also revealed that Karen’s family was now estranged from Karen’s daughter, Sarah, who she believed had been turned against them by her father.
Ms Gray said that she was heartbroken to have lost her “funny, creative, beautiful, loving niece”.
Another cousin, Nevada Knight, said: “Our lives will never be the same because of you, Borce.
“The hurt and constant questioning of where, how and why have affected all of Karen’s loved ones beyond repair.”
She blasted his actions in dumping Karen’s body and then spinning a web of deceit.
“It takes one second to dial triple-0,” Ms Knight said.
“You knew all this time, yet you were still able to wake up each day, get through it, and continue to the next.
“That isn’t possible for someone who loves his wife,” she said.
Ms Knight said that while watching Ristevski mourn his wife at her funeral, she had even felt guilty that she had earlier suspected him of being involved in Karen’s death.
“I hugged him, standing over her body at her gravesite,” she said.
And he had whispered: “Thank you for coming. Your support means a lot”.
Ms Knight said Ristevski had been a coward for waiting so long to reveal that Karen had died by his hand.
“You’ve had almost three years to come forward,” she said. “You admitted to doing the act when it suited your case.
“That’s not remorse. It’s selfishness. You’ve taken a mother, sister, boss and friend from this world,” she said.
“You have no true remorse, and have left the biggest hole in all of us.”
Mr Williams, in his statement, also spoke of such a hole in a life he would no longer be able to share with his sister.
There would be, he said, “no more phone calls, no more surprise visits, no more hugs and kisses, no more shared stories of our perfect childhood, no more being teased that I must have been adopted, no more being introduced to others as Karen’s ‘little baby brother’.”
Mr Williams also said that during his interactions with Ristevski in the eight months before Karen’s body was finally discovered, his brother-in-law had mentioned Karen’s name only twice.
“He only cared about himself,” Mr Williams said.
“He never asked how I was feeling.”
Mr Williams ended his victim impact statement by telling the killer that Ristevski should not be the person who was angry and full of hate.
“These are the emotions I should be feeling, not you,” Mr Williams said.
“You don’t get to feel that.”
He then asked: “At what stage will we finally say that enough is enough when it comes to domestic violence?”