Police say Pike River evidence destroyed in 2015 held 'no value', but families want answers

Thursday, 5 September 2019

An objective of the Pike River Recovery Agency is to recover evidence and remains from the mine where possible.

Police admit destroying items gathered during the Pike River investigation but say the items held 'no value'.

Some Pike families are demanding answers as to why police destroyed the evidence in 2015, taken from the Pike River mine where 29 men died in a series of explosions in 2010.

Detective Superintendent Peter Read said some items gathered during the investigation were destroyed after being assessed as holding no evidential value.

'The items had been available to the Royal Commission of Inquiry and the Department of Labour but were not used. Experts were aware of the items but it was believed they held no value to their deliberations,' he said.

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He declined to say what the items were.

Flames coming out of a ventilation shaft at Pike River Mine after a fourth explosion in 2010.

Dean Dunbar and Bernie Monk, who both lost sons in the disaster, are calling for an independent inquiry.

Monk said it was 'damning' for police to destroy any evidence from the mine.

Sonya Rockhouse, the mother of one of the men who was killed and another who survived the blast, said the items were collected at the top of the mine vent shaft after the disaster.

The Pike River re-entry crew steps into the mine drift. (Video first published on May 21, 2019)

She understood the items destroyed included a rubber glove and a piece of overall found in the drift.

'Though we are not aware that any of these items have potential significance to future prosecutions, the historic destruction of anything collected from this mishandled crime scene is troubling and should not have happened,' she said.

'Truth and justice is the Pike families' most important goal. Though these items were made available to both the Royal Commission and Worksafe investigators at the time and not found to have significance, they should have been retained for future investigations, just in case. I'm sure police regret this decision now, with everything the families have achieved since that time.'

Rockhouse, who is a member of the Family Reference Group (FRG), which works with the Pike River Recovery Agency, said the families would meet police, agency staff and WorkSafe on Saturday for an update on the drift recovery.

Monk said he left the FRG because he did not want to abide by an agreement the group signed with police.

He believed it was a confidentiality agreement and he wanted to be able to speak freely to the media and to families about what he regarded were pressing issues, and release information about alleged failings in the police investigation.

FRG member Anna Osborne previously said the agreement was to reassure police and the agency they could rely on the group to handle confidential information responsibly and to ensure sensitive information could be conveyed to the FRG at the earliest juncture, then to families when the 'the time is right'.

Monk and Dunbar previously clashed with police over what they described as crucial data from the mine's 'black box', which police denied existed beyond the first mine explosion on November 19, 2010. Police admitted they had data up to December 2 after Pike River Recovery Agency chief executive Dave Gawn informed them the agency had the data up to November 24.

The encrypted SCADA data is an electronic record of everything happening at the mine, with video footage, measurements of gas levels and electrical activity, and records of phone calls.

Two miners walked out after the first blast, but there was a second explosion five days later. Dunbar and Monk believe the data could hold crucial information about the cause of the second explosion, which effectively ended all rescue hopes.

Monk and Dunbar had no faith in the new investigation team, 'which unfortunately includes members of the original investigation team'.

'We have been seeking information from them for over two years and they have consistently delayed and denied evidence exists,' Monk said.