Shock at 9-yr-old girl’s drowning

As children head back to school today, the family of one little girl who drowned at home are mourning the loss of their daughter.

Residents on Bacardi Place in Conifer Grove, in Takanini, were shocked after the news that a 9-year-old girl from their street had died yesterday morning.

A neighbour said that over the years she often saw a girl playing outside the property.

“If it’s the same girl, I remember her when she was small,” she said. “She’d always give us a wave.” The woman said despite them all living on the street for several years, she did not know the family well and the majority of neighbours on the small cul-de-sac kept to themselves.

They were very private, she said, but she would be popping over some time to offer her respects and condolences to the family.

Another resident on the street said

[The] family are really raw at the moment. Sergeant John Yearbury

the family had lived there for about seven or eight years and he understood the girl attended a local school for some time.

He said the family were members of the Plymouth Brethren Church community and kept to themselves, mostly. “I couldn’t even tell you their first names,” he said.

St John and police were called to the area just before 8am.

However, it is understood paramedics could not do anything more for the child and she was pronounced dead at the scene.

Speaking outside the house, Senior Sergeant John Yearbury said a family member discovered the girl’s body.

The circumstances of the drowning are not yet known and police said it was too early to say whether it had been an accident or a medical event.

“[The] family are really raw at the moment,” Yearbury said.

Members of the Brethren community, bearing plates of food, arrived at the home throughout the morning to offer their support.

The death has been referred to the coroner.