Lachie Jones inquest: Dad still has unanswered questions as inquest concludes

Friday, 16 August 2024

The father of a dead toddler has given an emotional speech on the last day of an inquest into his son’s death - but he says he still has no answers about how his son died.

“As a proud dad of Lachie, I now spend all his birthdays and Christmases at a headstone. I never once got to take Lachie to school, or watch him play any sport or celebrate any milestone, but I have continued to fight for him because I'm still his loving dad,’’ Paul Jones said.

His son Lachie was three years old when he was found dead late on the evening of January 29, 2019, face up in a council wastewater pond near his home in Gore.

Police quickly concluded the boy had drowned but later confessed they had “missed some steps” in the investigation.

Jones was given permission to read a statement by Coroner Alexander Ho, who has heard five weeks’ of evidence from family members, neighbours, experts and emergency services personnel during the inquest at the Invercargill District Court.

“My son idolised the police but they have hugely let him down,’’ he said.

He urged the coroner to answer all his original questions, which included how his son got to the ponds and how he died, ‘’so me and my beautiful son Lachie can rest’’.

Outside court, Jones told Stuff that after five weeks of hearing evidence he still did not know how Lachie got to the ponds and he ‘’would not give up fighting for my son’’.

Lachie’s mother Michelle Officer had also prepared a statement which was read by her lawyer Beatrix Woodhouse.

“Our whole world has been shattered since Lachie's passing. Words cannot express our grief and loss for my son and our brother,’’ Woodhouse said on Officer’s behalf.

“We treasure the memories we can have with Lachie. They are most sacred and private to us … at this time, my family, extended family and friends request space to grieve in private.’’

During his summing up, police counsel Robin Bates said police have acknowledged some shortcomings in procedures at the time and they had tried to rectify those as far as possible.

“There have been numerous and ongoing inquiries made throughout the hearing, leading up to the hearing … I think it is fair to say that no stone has been left unturned as far as that can be done at this point to try and get a run of every bit of information which might help,’’ he said.

“I think everybody involved in this case would like to be able to turn back the clock prior to Lachie’s death and prevent that’’.

He said United States detective Karen Smith’s evidence should be “treated with caution’’ because she ‘’strayed into finding some credibility and reliability’’.

During her evidence, Smith was critical of the police investigation into the death, saying they failed in 10 out of 10 areas cited as the most common errors in death investigations.

“What Ms Smith did was become an advocate for a particular position and not an objective expert,” Bates said.

“She did not have the opportunity to see and hear the witnesses, which is an important part of making assessments about credibility and reliability. Ms Smith should have left open the possibility for other alternatives rather than her hypothesis.’’

In her evidence, Smith said she tried to disprove the hypothesis that Lachie was placed into the oxidation pond postmortem by a third party and the scene was staged to look like an accident, but was unable to do so.

Woodhouse said all evidence showed that Michelle [Officer] was the most caring and loving mother to her son, and the totality of evidence points to Lachie having run away from his mum twice, taking himself to the oxidation pond, and drowning.

“Any allegations of the contrary lie in the face of the balance of both expert and actual witnesses,’’ she said.

Max Simpkins, who was acting for Paul Jones, said Lachie was vulnerable and was not not treated well by the police or the medical profession.

He said the cause of death should be ruled as undetermined at this point, some of the evidence about Lachie’s lungs to support a diagnosis of drowning was “unconvincing” and the police dog failing to track Lachie’s scent if he had been at the ponds was “complete nonsense”.

“My submission to you, sir, will be that a recommendation should be made that this matter should be returned to the police and a proper and thorough investigation should be completed in relation to this vulnerable infant.”

Adam Holloway, who was acting for the pathologist with name suppression who carried out the autopsy on Lachie, said the issue most pertinent to him was whether his conclusion of the cause of death in drowning was correct or not.

“There has been no persuasive evidence that is submitted that contradicts or is inconsistent with [withheld] so there's been nothing that you've heard that makes a finding of drowning unavailable,’’ he said.

Other experts had given evidence that a serious head injury could not be ruled out but it was ‘’inherently unlikely to occur in circumstances where there is no other sign of trauma or bruising’’.

Simon Mount KC, who is assisting the coroner, did not sum up the case but said if further relevant evidence came to light there would be mechanisms for that to be considered.

Coroner Ho reserved his findings, and said he was acutely aware that it was hard to be asked to wait and to have faith in the process, especially for some who feel that they have been let down by the process already.

“It has now been over five and a half years since Lachie died. The wait is perhaps even more difficult when … it may be that not all of the questions about what happened that day will eventually be able to be answered on the evidence that is before me.

“I can only promise that I will work as hard as I can with the evidence that has been given to try and cast some light into the shadows that exist about what happened to Lachie that day and that the work for Lachie continues,’’ he said.