Roger Calkin with a photo of his late son, Sandy Calkin. Roger is hopeful Wellington City Council will install permanent balustrades on the waterfront as the coroner has recommended. Photo / Mark Mitchell
A blistering coroner’s report says a young man’s drowning may have been prevented if Wellington City Council had investigated previous deaths and accidents at the waterfront, kept accurate records and heeded experts’ advice.
In her decision released today into the death of Sandy Calkin, Coroner Katharine Greig said it was clear Wellington City Council (WCC) knew about identified safety risks at the waterfront but failed to act on them.
Arguably, the council’s approach over the years has tipped in favour of amenity and aesthetic considerations over safety, she said.
It’s a finding that has been welcomed by the 30-year-old’s father Roger Calkin, who has spent the past three and a half years trying to draw attention to what he considered a neglect by the council to address safety at the waterfront.
“It’s been devastating for me and my family. You lose a son, you don’t come back from that. When you see it [in] print, in a document like this, it hits home how much it’s impacted on us as a family,” he said.
Calkin’s lifeless body was pulled from Wellington Harbour by police divers on July 17, 2021. He’d been missing for a week.
The L’affare coffee roaster died after a night out with friends following work drinks on Friday, July 9. Friends say when he left the bar on Courtenay Place after midnight, he’d been drinking but was still able to hold a conversation and was steady on his feet.
Once outside, Calkin’s trip took him along the waterfront towards the railway station, where he intended to catch the late train home to Porirua, north of Wellington. It was also the council’s recommended safety route for those leaving town and heading north.
No one witnessed Calkin’s fatal fall, but parts of his final journey were captured on CCTV. One of the last images of Calkin alive shows him walking past Fergs Kayaks.
Shortly afterwards – at the northern end of Queens Wharf, near the East by West ferry berth – Calkin fell into the harbour and accidentally drowned in the early hours of July 10, the coroner found.
His family believe he fell on to a pontoon, hit his head and fell into the water, but was unable to climb out because of the weight of his clothes. There was a metal access ladder down to the water near where Calkin’s body was found.
Calkin’s death wasn’t an isolated incident: over the previous 17 years, seven people have drowned in the harbour. Six of those deaths occurred at night and, like Calkin, after they’d been drinking.
In addition, figures from council records, coroner’s findings and media reports over a similar timeframe show 17 people accidentally fell into the harbour but didn’t die.
In her decision, Coroner Greig said given these statistics the council was, or should have been, on notice that people were at risk of dying at Wellington’s waterfront. And that risk was heightened at night after people had been drinking.
Her findings include:
Calkin’s trip that night took him along a 2km stretch of waterfront lined with bars and restaurants, commercial buildings, offices, parks and recreational spaces. It’s the second-most-commuted area in the city, popular with walkers, cyclists and scooter riders.
At night it’s also popular with people like Calkin heading south towards Courtenay Place – the party end of town – and at the end of a night out, north towards the railway station.
While the council has held control and management of the waterfront since 2014, none of the deaths, including Calkin’s, were investigated by the council. That is because it regarded drowning deaths at the waterfront as “non-work related”, preferring instead to focus on asset management and health and safety.
In reality, that meant if someone was injured or killed because of a failure or defect on one of their assets, the council would investigate. For example, on the weekend of Calkin’s death, a man fell down a hole beside an unlit waterfront statue, not far from where Calkin drowned. He needed 30 stitches.
That incident was investigated by the council because of its responsibilities to WorkSafe. In Calkin’s case, the council determined it wasn’t a workplace death and therefore it wasn’t liable.
The council’s refusal to fix such obvious problems on the waterfront spurred Roger Calkin into action. He began filing numerous Official Information Act requests with the council, scouring media reports and reviewing coroners' findings.
As a result of his investigations, it emerged the council hadn’t recorded or investigated his son’s death, or any other deaths in the harbour, since 2015. And it had investigated only two of the 13 non-fatal accidental falls that it reported.
If the council wasn’t recording the deaths or near misses in Wellington Harbour, it also wasn’t listening to its own experts. The decision shows the council received seven reports, going as far back as 2005, that identified problems at the waterfront.
Dr Frank Stoks, an architect and specialist in risk management, prepared a series of safety reviews in 2011, 2013 and 2016 that identified problems with lighting, trip hazards and the absence of edge protection at the waterfront.
In his final report to the council, Stoks noted a number of recommendations and safety mitigations had still not been carried out. He also observed that the approach to injury prevention at the waterfront was at odds with what was happening in other cities.
“Waterfront users tripping and falling, including into the water (sometimes fatally) have become credible not fanciful events, with potentially dangerous consequences,” he said.
Stoks also drew the council’s attention to two sites near Shed 5 Restaurant.
Yet six years later, when Calkin fell to his death, the coroner found there had been no changes to this area.
After Calkin’s death, the council commissioned two more reports. The first, in April 2022, found half of the 24 areas identified as needing work in a Waterfront Edge Safety Assessment – undertaken by the council staff in 2016 – still hadn’t been addressed. Again, a lack of edge protection and inadequate lighting were identified as problems.
A second report in August that year noted in the area by Shed 5 and the Meridian building – again near where Calkin fell – the only protection from falling into the water was timber nibs, and the lighting was insufficient.
In her findings, Coroner Greig acknowledged Roger Calkin’s “assiduous work” highlighting safety issues at Wellington’s waterfront.
Coroner Greig’s recommendations include:
Reading the report, Roger Calkin says he feels it justifies everything he’s been trying to do since his son’s death, but admits it has taken a toll on him and his family.
He is confident the coroner’s recommendations will be adopted and the necessary funds will be allocated.
Roger Calkin has also commended WCC staff, including managers Paul Andrews and Shane Binnie, who have helped change the organisation’s thinking around safety at the waterfront.
“They’ve been great, they’ve done everything you would expect from people who are looking at a health and safety issue and trying to deal with it directly,” he said.
While staff at the operational level of the council are ready to go, he believes the resistance to installing the identified safety improvements comes from higher up the organisation, at the executive leadership level and from some around the council table.
Since 2023, temporary metal fencing has lined parts of the waterfront. However, there have been calls from at least one current city councillor not to install a permanent fence, with the view that the estimated $11 million cost is too expensive and would be an eyesore.
Roger Calkin says the fact no bodies have been pulled from the waterfront since the temporary fencing was installed shows why it should be made permanent.
Mayor Tory Whanau extended her sincerest condolences to Sandy Calkin’s family and friends.
She said the council had read the coroner’s report and accepted the coroner’s findings.
“We are heartened by the coroner’s acknowledgment that the council has taken ‘positive steps’ towards safety at the waterfront, and recognise that a significant amount of work still has to be undertaken,” she told NZME.
Since 2022, the council had implemented a range of actions to improve waterfront safety, she said.
The council was prioritising edge protection and lighting improvements across various aspects of waterfront safety and had set aside a budget of $11.1m for edge protection in the council’s 2025-26 Annual Plan.
A business case will be presented to a council committee in May, which will also include public consultation.
A date for this consultation has yet to be set.
Catherine Hutton is an Open Justice reporter, based in Wellington. She has worked as a journalist for 20 years, including at the Waikato Times and RNZ. Most recently she was working as a media adviser at the Ministry of Justice.
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