Coroner Alexander Ho’s inquest into the 2019 death of Lachie Jones began at the Invercargill District Court this week and counsel assisting him Simon Mount KC acknowledged why the case had gripped the community.
"How can it be that a 3 and a-half-year-old boy runs away 1.2km, nine o’clock at night, dirty nappy, climbs a fence, travels across some pretty uncomfortable ground ... through the vegetation, no-one out searching sees him, he doesn’t respond to anyone calling out his name, the police dog doesn’t pick up the scent until quite close to him. Do you understand why people say this doesn’t add up?"
Police quickly concluded it was a tragic drowning, but Max Simpkins, the lawyer for Lachie’s father Paul Jones, suggested the boy had been killed several hours before he was reported missing and a false alibi was established to cover it up.
The boy’s mother Michelle Officer, whose name suppression lapsed yesterday, repeatedly broke down in tears over nearly two days of vigorous cross-examination throughout which she stressed neither she, nor her other two sons, were responsible for the boy’s death.
"My whole world, my whole life has been destroyed. I’ve just had all these false allegations I was a bad mother, which wasn’t true at all. It’s just been horrible."
"I’ve been ... in grief and depressed and I just don’t want to live sometimes. I just want to be with my wee boy," she said.
Ms Officer told the court she had collected Lachie from preschool, done some work, picked up her middle son and gone home for a pizza dinner.
Later that night, Lachie had a soiled nappy but Ms Officer said he played a "sort of hide-and-seek-chase game" when she tried to change him.
She tended to her other son who had a mishap with some gym equipment and when she returned to the kitchen, she described seeing a flash of hi-vis out of the window.
"I just took off," she said.
"I just moved forward and lost that peripheral vision for 30 seconds. It wouldn’t have been long at all," Ms Officer said.
It was the last time she saw him alive.
Mr Simpkins said an expert would give evidence later in the inquest to say that the trip to the neighbour seemed designed to create a "false alibi" and that it was impossible Lachie could have rounded the corner of the road towards the oxidation ponds in such a short time.
"He was quick and he could’ve hid anywhere," the mother said.
As she searched for her son, Ms Officer called police from near where Lachie was ultimately found.
Mr Simpkins questioned her on why she went to the ponds if her son had never been there before.
"You knew he was already there," he suggested.
"I didn’t know where he was," she said. "You eliminate the dangers."
Videos showing Lachie chasing ducks in an Invercargill park were played in court and Ms Officer said she was so worried about his speed and fearlessness she had bought a safety harness for him.
"It made me anxious because he was really confident. He’d just run off ... he could climb really easy and he was a fast runner."
Statements obtained by police from neighbours and preschool staff described her as an attentive mother, bordering on over-protective.
But Mr Simpkins said her sons despised Mr Jones, her estranged on-off partner of five years, and had reason to get rid of their brother.
"If Lachie is no longer at home there’s no need for Paul to go to the home, is there?" he asked.
"I know what you’re getting at," Ms Officer said. "My boys have a father that lives close by. If Paul comes to the house they just go to their father’s home."
Mr Simpkins took Lachie’s mother through the boy’s medical history — ranging from nappy rash and gum disease to suspected pneumonia — and said an expert who reviewed the file had opined it showed evidence of neglect.
She vehemently denied the accusation.
Finally, Mr Simpkins put it to the witness that Lachie had been killed early in the afternoon shortly after being collected from daycare, rather than drowning some time after 9pm.
Ms Officer described the proposition as "ludicrous".
A review of the police response later found there were "missed steps" during early inquiries.
The coroner opened the hearing on Monday emphasising that while two police investigations found there was no nefarious involvement of any other person in the boy’s death, he was not bound by that.
"Here, we’re conducting a fact-finding exercise," Mr Ho said.
The inquiry, the first phase of which is scheduled to last three weeks, will continue tomorrow with Lachie’s half-brothers in the witness box.
