In the end, the five-week inquest into the death of Gore toddler Lachlan Jones boiled down to two factors: science and circumstances. The first phase of the inquest was held in May. Listeners to Newsroom’s DELVE podcast The Boy in the Water will know all about it: wild accusations, tears, high courtroom drama.
Lachie’s parents both cried in the dock. Michelle Officer, Lachie’s mother, has always maintained her young son escaped her peripheral vision when they had stopped into a neighbour’s house before making his way up the street, along a stony road, over a fence and near the end of two large oxidation ponds before falling in and drowning. Paul Jones, Lachie’s father, is convinced there are too many unanswered questions to make this scenario plausible.
This second phase of the inquest began as a far more sedate affair. Designated as the ‘expert’ phase of the inquest, a selection of professionals including two forensic pathologists, a former US detective and a paediatrician, were given the two month hiatus between fixtures to review the evidence from phase one before forming and presenting their opinions. There was a naïve, remote sense of hope at first, that these experts would unveil the answer, each providing a piece of the puzzle until the picture revealed itself and everyone could go home.
Instead, whiplash, badgering and a sprinkle of magical thinking were the cornerstones of the week-long fixture. How the little boy got to be in the town’s sewage pond.