The inquest into the death of Gore toddler Lachlan Jones has turned up a new witness who says he saw two teenagers and a small child in a high vis vest in the area where the boy’s body was found the day he died.
Lachie’s body was discovered face up near the end of the second of two large sewage oxidation ponds on January 29, 2019.
Dave McKewen worked as an animal control officer for the Gore District Council dog pound facility at the time, which was located inside the fenced grounds of the oxidation ponds, next to the water treatment plant facility.
McKewen told the inquest that between 3.30pm and 3.35pm that day, as he was walking towards a gate, he saw three people about 300 metres away in a paddock near a fence bordering the ponds.
“The small one was small, quite young. I would’ve said between three to five and the other ones was what I’d call a juvenile teenager and a teenager.”
“I saw them at the fence looking like they were going to do something, like get over it.”
Asked if he could tell what was going on, McKewen replied: “Just someone was struggling at a fence. I dunno what was going on.”
He said after he found out someone had died in the area, the next day he wrote in his work diary what he’d seen in the paddock, expecting to get to give a statement to the police, which never happened.
“I was never asked. I was waiting just like other staff. We talked about it. The people that worked in that area at the time says, ‘oh, we’ll have to get stuff ready for when the police turn up.’”
But he says they never did.
Asked why he didn’t come forward to police of his own volition, he said he had told his manager about the incident at the time, because as council employees they weren’t allowed to speak to the police without senior management’s approval.
“Everything you do when you’re a council employee has to get approved from senior management.
“I told the manager about it and the manager asked me some questions, brought up a map, you know, kind of what we’ve done here today and said what I saw. And he talked in a meeting about it and then nothing happened.”
Simon Mount, the KC working on behalf of the Coroner Alexander Ho, then asked McKewen if he knew Lachie Jones, to which he said he didn’t.
“There wasn’t anything about the appearance of the little person that you linked specifically to Lachie, is that right?” asked Mount.
“No. But they were wearing a high vis vest.”
“The little boy that you saw on the afternoon was wearing a hi-vis vest?”
“Yep.”
When Lachlan’s body was found he was wearing a yellow hi viz vest. His little replica police hat was also found nearby.
McKewen said police never contacted him or any of the people who worked in the area, and it wasn’t until Lachie’s father’s lawyer, Max Simpkins, contacted him earlier this year that he shared what he had seen.
Mount also asked why he hadn’t contacted police after he had left his job at the council, to which McKewen said by then he had left town and his life had moved on.
He told the court he no longer had the diary as he threw all his work diaries out when he shifted house.
McKewen’s account is in contrast to a number of people who believe they saw someone resembling Lachie that night.
Neighbours who lived on the same street as Lachie have told the inquest they saw a person matching Lachie’s description making his way along the footpath in the direction of the ponds the night he went missing.
The new evidence on day seven of the inquest being held in Invercargill is the first to report a small child and others in the vicinity of the oxidation ponds.
Five police representatives sat at the back of the public gallery during the inquest on Tuesday, including Detective Inspector Stu Harvey, who was in charge of the re-investigation, Southland Area Commander Inspector Mike Bowman, who told media there had been “missed steps” in the original investigation into Lachie’s death, and another detective sergeant, Sean Cairns.
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