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 some non-expert witnesses are giving evidence about text message discussions that recently came to light.
A witness said she understood Lachie’s half-brother Jonathan Scott threw the toddler into the pond.
The woman said her friend Tyler Tremaine told her: “Johnny was the one that threw his wee brother into the pond”.
“He said he grabbed him, picked him up and biffed him in,” she explained.
She said what Mr Tremaine told her made her believe he was saying Mr Scott had killed Lachie.
“The way Tyler said it was a bit too casual for my liking,” she said.
The witness said she was “mindblown” when she heard this and did not know what to do.
“All I had was verbal proof and I know that. . . you need physical proof,” she said.
“Slowly listening to everything over the media, it added up.”
In May this year she showed police text messages from Mr Tremaine confirming he had said Mr Scott threw his brother into the pond.
In court, when the woman was told that Mr Scott denied being involved in his brother’s death and Mr Tremaine denied relaying the information to her, she replied: “How can you deny it? It's black and white.”
The witness knew Lachie’s half-brothers in her childhood and said Jonathan Scott would “terrorise her”.
She recalled him trapping her in a paddock with an aggressive animal, dragging her down the street and shaking her out of a tree she was climbing.
These things caused her to hide from Jonathan Scott and when she heard about Lachie playing a hide-and-seek game it reminded her of her own experience.
“The more I heard the more it freaked me out and brought me to reality that it was the same thing [that happened] with me,” she said.
The witness did not think Mr Tremaine was joking or lying.
“You don't joke about that. . . that's sick,” she said.
She struggled to recall exactly when Mr Tremaine first told her about Mr Scott’s alleged involvement in his brother’s death, but she was sure it happened.
“If I didn't say anything I'd be the exact same as Tyler sitting there making it a topic or a conversation, it's not… you go to the police about it,” she said.
Jonathan Scott and Mr Tremaine are expected to be called this afternoon.
