The expert phase of Coroner Alexander Ho’s inquest into the 3-year-old’s death continued in Invercargill today.
In 2019, Lachie was found 1.2km from his Gore home, face up in an oxidation pond.
Police quickly concluded the boy had drowned, but later confessed they "missed some steps" in the investigation.
Today, Nick Khan, a Post Haste driver, gave evidence that he and Lachie’s father Paul Jones were the only people in the Gore depot on January 29, 2019.
The witness said in the afternoons he would spend most of his time at the depot and only complete deliveries for less than 20 minutes at a time.
Lachie’s mother Michelle Officer said she was at the depot for 25 minutes from 4:55pm.
At 5:20pm she sent a text to her son saying: “at depot, blocked in”.
“Nobody can get blocked in in there, it’s a massive open yard,” Mr Khan said.
He said it was possible that he was on a delivery while Ms Officer was at the depot, but did not think it was likely because there were packages outside when he arrived back which he thought Ms Officer would have moved if she were there.
Paul Jones earlier gave evidence that he saw Ms Officer outside the depot about 4pm.
Data from package scanners showed five packages were scanned at 4:55.
Mr Khan was confused about how multiple packages could be scanned at the same time, at two locations that were 3km apart.
He said two scanners could not be logged in simultaneously under the same employee code without one being automatically logged out.
Therefore he did not think it was possible Ms Officer had scanned packages on her scanner at one location while Mr Jones scanned packages elsewhere.
The witness thought one explanation could be that the scanner froze and only recorded the packages had been scanned once it was docked at the depot.
He saw Mr Jones multiple times on the day Lachie died and believed he was the only other person in the depot.
Gore District Council’s three waters operations manager Aaron Green gave evidence about the depth, makeup and slope of the oxidation pond.
He said sometimes a white foam forms around the edge of the pond.
Last week, forensic pathologist Dr Judy Melinek said there was “ample evidence” to say Lachie had drowned, and the foam in his mouth indicated he had breathed in water.
The inquest will continue this afternoon and a paediatrician is expected to give evidence.
