Divers scour lake for teen jumper

A family member mourns at Lake Pupuke as she clutches shoes belonging to the missing teenager. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Police divers are this morning resuming their search of a popular swimming hole for a teenage boy who disappeared after jumping into the water from a cliff yesterday.

The 16-year-old business school student was with a group exercise at Lake Pupuke on the North Shore.

He was one of several teenagers who dived about 10m from a ledge near Shea Terrace in Takapuna into a freshwater arm next to Pupuke.

Witnesses said the teenager surfaced briefly after jumping into Quarry Lake about 2.40pm yesterday.

But he then sank from view, and is presumed to have drowned.

Police and paramedics were called, and firefighters used ropes to abseil down the cliff to search for the boy.

Distraught family members were at the scene, waiting for police divers to arrive from Wellington.

One woman stood clutching his shoes and crying at the water's edge, while others tried to comfort her and appeared to pray.

The owner of the School of Business in Newmarket, Lyndon Cooper, told the Herald four of his staff met the boy's family last night.

"We're trying to do everything we can for them. They're absolutely distraught."

He would meet the boy's family early this morning to offer support.

The school would be counselling the students and the tutor who were also on the trip, he said.

"The tutor's not doing very well. Another staff member had to take him home and console him. The students aren't doing much better."

Mr Cooper described the missing boy as a "really nice guy".

"He had a really smiley face and was just a really good guy."

He did not have details about what had happened at the lake and was in a "state of shock".

Asked why the students would be jumping into the water he said: "I have a very limited knowledge of what they were doing today."

The students were a "diverse" group. Some were enrolled in short courses, and others were on fulltime year-long studies.

At the same time as the 16-year-old went missing, teenagers in another group were also jumping into the lake.

One injured her back and was taken by ambulance to hospital.

The North Shore Squash Club is on Shea Terrace, and club president Pat Menzies said he had warned young people of the dangers of jumping from the cliff only days ago.

"I said 'if you're not careful there will be an accident and someone will get killed down there'."

Also last week he rang the council and left a message asking for a corner at the end of the squash club property to be fenced off to stop people slipping around and jumping.

"It needs a fence down towards the quarry to stop these young kids getting in and jumping off."

Mr Menzies said the club paid to extend the fence last year, raising its height and putting barbed wire on it.

But people still managed to get through - even using wire cutters.

"It's an ongoing concern. It's not that we don't like kids, but that [the drowning] is the result of it, unfortunately."

A woman who works at the squash club saw the boys leaping off the cliff in front of the fence.

"They were jumping off there and when I parked I was going to go over and tell them then, but I thought I'd bring my things inside first.

"As I was going back out, they all just ran screaming down the driveway."

She said another group of young men were standing on the other side of the quarry, also yelling.

Even as officers took down police tape near the quarry a group of teenage boys who had been swimming nearby told the Herald the accident wouldn't stop them jumping from the same cliff.

One said he would do it again today if he could.