The parents of murdered Feilding farmer Scott Guy say it's the support they've received from people in the community and around the country that's helped them cope with the loss of their son.
Bryan and Jo Guy say that support has given them a huge amount of strength and courage following their son's death and the trial of their son-in-law, Ewen Macdonald, for his murder.
"We're better now than we were a month ago, and we were better a month ago than what we were a year ago," Mr Guy told TV3's Campbell Live programme.
The first few months after Scott's death, in July 2010, were extremely painful, Mrs Guy said.
"You're more in shock and disbelief, then you think it's like a bad movie you're watching of someone else, but in actual fact it was us and it was very, very surreal."
Macdonald was cleared in July of murdering his brother-in-law, who was shot dead in the driveway of his Feilding home, after a trial at the High Court in Wellington.
However, Macdonald was sentenced to five years in prison when he appeared in the High Court at Palmerston North last week on six charges he earlier pleaded guilty to.
He last year admitted setting fire to the Guy family's old house in 2008, vandalising Scott Guy's new home in 2009, poaching stags from a nearby farm, killing 19 calves with a hammer, destroying 16,000 litres of milk and burning down a historic duck shooters' hut.
"The day Ewen was arrested, I think I said at the time it was like a tsunami had hit me," Mr Guy said.
"From that there is obviously a loss of trust," he said.
"That's been hard to come to terms with but I guess it's something we don't want to dwell on, it's no good feeling sorry for ourselves or feeling anger or bitterness about that."
Macdonald, 32, has been in custody since his arrest on April 7 last year, and has spent 17 months in prison.
He will be eligible for parole after serving 20 months' imprisonment which is December 7.
NZN
