Police ‘did not follow best practice’ night boy found
A CIB detective says the fact Lachie Jones’ feet were unmarked and he was found dead face up in the waste water ponds did not cause him any concern.
But had he known there were allegations of wrong-doing in relation to the death, he would have instructed for a scene guard to be at the ponds after Lachie’s death.
Detective Sergeant David Kennelly gave evidence on Tuesday at the inquest into the death of Lachie, who was three years old when he was found dead late on the evening of January 29, 2019, face up in a council oxidation pond near his home.
During questioning from police lawyer Robin Bates, Kennelly said after travelling from Winton to Invercargill police station and then to Gore, he walked down to the ponds and met dog handler Lachie McDonald, who showed him where he had found Lachie’s body.
Senior sergeant Cynthia Fairley was the officer in charge that night, Kennelly said.
McDonald did not brief him on where the dog picked up Lachie’s scent and he did not ask him about it, he said.
Kennelly, a seasoned police officer who had more than 15 years’ experience in the CIB, another officer and inspector Mike Bowman walked around the ponds but did not find anything unusual, he said.
During the search they did not establish whether there were other entries to the ponds or consider that a young person may have been transported to the ponds rather than walked, he said.
“That was at odds with the information I’d been briefed on,’’ he said.
One of the officers placed a marker in the pond to show where Lachie had died.
Max Simpkins, who is the lawyer representing Lachie’s father Paul Jones, asked why no scene guard had been in place overnight and whose decision that was.
Kennelly said it was his. It was considered that people had been searching in the area and they may have contaminated the site, and police had information that there had been a confirmed sighting of Lachie on the corner of Salford St and Grasslands Rd earlier in the evening.
He did not know the age of the witness or how long they had seen the child, Kennelly said. Simpkins asked whether police needed to keep an open mind when they attended matters like a death and whether he accepted it was not in his training to jump to conclusions.
Kennelly agreed and said police should consider all options when they attend a death. He had discussed locking the gate with another officer, Hua Tamariki, and went to the Gore police station and the funeral home, where he noted there were no marks on Lachie’s body except for a puncture wound on his neck from CPR.
Kennelly continued giving evidence on Wednesday, where he was questioned by Simon Mount, KC, who is acting for the coroner.
Kennelly said police had not taken water samples during their reconnaissance that night, did not establish the depth of the ponds or the temperature of the water.
He thought those issues would be investigated later by a leadership team.
He again said that in hindsight it would have been prudent to cordon off the area on the night so a full scene examination could have been carried out the next day.
When talking about Lachie’s body, Kennelly said he did not think a child would necessarily have injuries on their feet from the distance Lachie was thought to have walked. At the funeral home, Kennelly did not notice any blemishes on the body or signs of rigor mortis, he said.
Kennelly said he did not know who made the decision not to treat Lachie’s death as suspicious, and in terms of the allegations that were later levelled by Paul Jones, it should have been.
A forensic post-mortem should also have been carried out, he said.
Kennelly agreed that police did not follow best practice in terms of protocols that should be followed when there has been the sudden death of a child, and said it was a “grey area” whether he was attending the scene as a search and rescue member or a CIB member.