How much is being spent on slushie machines for prison guards ferry service to be put to the test to save Wynyard in the latest NZ Herald headlines. Video / NZ Herald / AP
The older half-brother of Lachlan Jones said it was a “disgusting accusation” to be accused of aiding in disposing of his sibling’s body.
He said he often looked after Lachlan and loved teaching him how to jump and catch things and letting him pretend to play PlayStation with a disconnected controller.
Simpkins asked Scott why, if he loved Lachie so much, he went to bed rather than assisting with the search.
“I went to bed because I thought they would find him, I did not think something like this would happen,” said Scott.
Lawyer Beatrix Woodhouse at the Invercargill courthouse on Thursday during the coronial inquest into Lachie Jones' death. Photo / Southland Times/Stuff
When asked about his decision to smoke cannabis in the hours after Lachie had been found dead, Scott told the inquest he would have “done anything to cope with the devastation of losing his little brother”.
Simpkins raised a worksheet from a police victim support person who visited the brothers the day after Lachie’s death, stating they “just brushed it off”.
Scott told the inquest he was not interested in speaking to them as they were a stranger and he only wanted support from family and friends “not some random person”.
“Would you want to speak to someone that you didn’t know after you had just lost a little brother? Of course, I didn’t want to speak to her.
“I had plenty of support around me without speaking to them.”
The evening of Lachlan’s death, Officer made two calls to Scott that he answered, the first to say Lachie was missing and the second asking him for the number to contact police.
Lachie Jones, 3, was found dead in an oxidation pond near his Gore home in January 2019. Composite image / Paul Slater
Auckland-based Coroner Alexander Ho started hearing the inquest into the death of Lachlan Jones on Monday. Photo / Southland Times/Stuff
He told the inquest his mother was “extremely capable”, and did all the housework, cooking and cleaning – prompting Simpkins to ask why she needed to ask him what the emergency number was.
She told the inquest she trusted the mother’s version of events, and a statement she had previously made to police alleging the mother said “Lachie had done her a favour” was taken out of context.
After returning from Slope Point around 7.30pm, she sat down to watch television.
Sometime later, Thurston told the inquest she heard Officer telling Lachie to knock on the door and could hear the preschooler with her.
“I could hear Lachlan moving around in the washhouse area and [her] trying to keep hold of him.”
She did not hear him talking, she said.
“Would you accept there’s nothing in that statement that you provided to police at that first opportunity that indicates that you could hear Lachie, except for that tapping at the door?” asked Simpkins..
“Well, she didn’t ask me anything else. I usually take for gospel what people ask me,” she said.
She later told counsel, to assist the coroner Simon Mount, KC, that her television was on at the time but she was 99 per cent sure the noises she heard were Lachie.
Simpkins alleged in a statement Thurston made to police, that Officer had said the day after the boy’s death: “Lachie has done me a favour.”
Thurston said this was taken out of context, as Officer was frustrated at Paul Jones at the time. She said Officer meant Lachie had foreseen her future with Paul, and she no longer had a connection to him.
Thurston told the inquest what happened to Lachie was “a tragic accident, and that he drowned”.
