No apology for grieving dad after police admit they ‘missed steps’ while investigating his son’s death

An admission of mistakes being made – but no apology.

Grieving Gore dad Paul Jones says he’s not surprised police haven’t apologised to him after admitting that they “missed some steps” in the investigation into his son’s death.

In fact – as of Friday lunchtime, they hadn’t even contacted him to tell him they were re-investigating their own investigation, he said.

“It’s not surprising. I’ve always felt like they’ve had no respect for me because I’ve been the one that’s made all the noise trying to find out what happened to my son, and any parent would do the same,’’ he said.

“I feel vindicated in a way that they’ve finally admitted they got it wrong, but I’m not going to slag the police off because that’s not going to bring Lachie back. They know how I feel about them.’’

Three-year-old Lachie Jones was found dead in the Gore District Council’s wastewater pond on January 29, 2019, after he was reported missing from his mother’s house earlier in the evening.

His father has always maintained Lachie did not walk the 1.2km from his home, down a gravel road, over a fence and through scrubby land to where he was found. He had bare feet, but his body had no marks or scratches on it when he was found.

Jones has spent the last four-and-a-half years fighting for more information about how Lachie died.

On Thursday, Southern police district commander Paul Basham issued a statement to Stuff saying ‘’steps were missed’’ in the investigation to Lachie’s death, and he had requested a national investigations overview of police’s handling of the investigation.

Stuff asked what steps police believed they had missed, how long the investigation would take, whether the outcome of the investigation would be made public, whether anyone had been held responsible for the mistakes being made and if so, how; and whether they would apologise for ‘’missing some steps’’ in the initial investigation.

They declined to comment.

Gore District Council chief executive Stephen Parry said he found Basham’s admission that mistakes were made in the initial investigation ‘’highly frustrating”.

In March, the council was ordered to pay $55,000 to each of Lachie’s parents after pleading guilty to charges bought by WorkSafe in relation to the fencing at the ponds when he died.

Parry said if Basham’s comments had come before the court case it would not have materially altered the council’s position.

“We already knew the police investigation was inadequate,’’ he said.

The council paid a $30,000 legal bill Jones had incurred after he had the case reviewed by a lawyer because it shared his concerns about the first police investigation. That investigation subsequently lead to the case being reinvestigated for a second time.

The lawyer at the time, Bill Dawkins, highlighted problems with the initial investigation including there was a lack of analysis by police of the timing of key events, there was no detailed scene examination, and police didn’t fully investigate how long it would have taken Lachie to walk to the far end of the ponds, or how he got there.

Parry said it was ‘’refreshing’’ that police had admitted they made mistakes in the case and he was pleased to see they had been proactive in referring it to the Independent Police Complaints Authority.

“That saves Paul Jones and his team having to take that step.’’

He said the case of Lachie’s death ‘’sits very uncomfortably with him’’ and there were still a lot of unanswered questions, which he hoped one day would be answered.

The case is now before Coroner Ho, and Simon Mount KC has been appointed as counsel to assist.