A British man has been stabbed to death in a double murder in New Zealand over the weekend.

David Roberts, 43, originally from Caernarvon in North Wales, was killed alongside an Indonesian man in an apartment block in Auckland on Saturday morning in what was reportedly a domestic dispute gone wrong.

An Iraqi man appeared in court yesterday charged with the killings.

The two men were found dead in an apartment on the ground floor of the Alpha Apartments, a 14-storey tower in Vogel Lane in Auckland, where it has been reported Mr Roberts worked as the building supervisor. They died of multiple stab wounds.

Reports in New Zealand claimed a domestic incident was the catalyst for the dispute and neighbours said they heard two men and a woman arguing before police were called about 10am.

The dispute ended in an armed stand-off as a man stood on an 11th-floor balcony holding a large knife to his own throat.

Police negotiators talked for more than two hours to the man, who threatened to harm himself and others, before he was arrested.

Baseem Ridha Kadhim Abbad Almery, 30, of no fixed abode, appeared in Auckland District Court yesterday charged with double murder and aggravated burglary. He was remanded in custody for a psychiatric report.

Mr Roberts’s family said they are devastated by his death and are struggling to get information from the police due to the 11-hour time difference between Wales and New Zealand.

Mr Roberts’s niece, Tanya Lewis, who lives in Caernarvon, told BBC Wales: "I can't believe somebody would do something like this to him. You don't think it's ever going to happen to you. It's devastating."

His brother-in-law, Ronald Morgan, said: "If it was an accident probably we might have been able to come to terms with it a lot easier. But to find out it was a murder, that was the worst thing that could happen to anybody and especially involved with a knife.

"You hear so many things in the country about people being killed with knives and things like that and you never think about it happening to your own family."

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