Anger at no Gloriavale inquest

Family of a 14-year-old girl who died at West Coast Christian community Gloriavale are angry there won’t be an inquest.

Prayer Ready was the focus of a Stuff Circuit investigation in 2016, after she died from asphyxiation when she choked on a piece of meat, while in an isolation room on which the door handles had been disabled.

Earlier this year, members of Prayer’s family – aunt Ruth Green, sister Connie Ready and brother David Ready – wrote to the solicitor-general asking that an inquest be ordered under the Coroner’s Act. Crown Law has declined the request, acknowledging that while there are concerns over the role of the Gloriavale community leadership, ‘‘they do not meet the threshold for ordering a [new] inquiry’’.

Connie Ready told Stuff Circuit: ‘‘I am so furious. I feel as though all this time we have been waiting for justice, the judicial system has been looking for excuses’’.

When Prayer Ready died in 2015, Coroner Marcus Elliott visited the isolated community to investigate but did not hold an inquest. In his findings, he said: ‘‘Prayer was a much loved member of the Gloriavale community.

‘‘Her death was a tragic accident. It did not result from any want of care on the part of her family or Gloriavale.’’

But a second Stuff Circuit investigation revealed the claims of Prayer’s siblings that Gloriavale leaders had manipulated the coroner into believing the disabled door handles played no part in Prayer’s death. Connie Ready, now living outside the community, said: ‘‘Right outside that door is the central telephone system. You can’t tell me … you can’t … that it was just as easy to jump out the window, run around the veranda, into the hostel to get to the telephone, when you could [have just opened] the door, and it’s right there. My mum said to me, as soon as Prayer started choking her first reaction was to go for the telephone, or open the door and call out, because everyone lives right there, call out for some help, but she couldn’t do that.’’ When helpers did come, they had to climb in and out the window.

David Ready, who was a first responder to the emergency, said a meeting was called by the leaders before the coroner’s visit.

The purpose, he said, was to ‘‘sort out what we’re going to tell the coroner’’.

The family wrote to the solicitor-general: ‘‘To achieve justice for Prayer, and a fair finding as to the reasons for her death, [we] firmly believe there needs to be an inquest at which all witnesses are able to speak freely.’’

Deputy Solicitor-General Virginia Hardy wrote back: ‘‘I do not consider the concerns you have raised would produce a material difference to the coroner’s conclusion, nor that a new inquiry is in the public interest.’’

‘‘The judicial system has been looking for excuses.’’ Connie Ready