Coroner Alexander Ho’s inquest into the 2019 death of 3-year-old Lachie continued at the Invercargill District Court yesterday.
The toddler was found dead in an oxidation pond in Gore and the police admitted they "missed steps" in the initial investigation, quickly deciding it was a tragic drowning.
Yesterday, Lachie’s half-brother, Jonathan Scott, who was 16 in 2019, said the two of them got on "really well".
But Max Simpkins, counsel for Lachie’s father Paul Jones, suggested to Mr Scott he knew Lachie was dead hours before he was reported missing, and had put him in the freezer.
"That’s ridiculous," Mr Scott said.
But the witness admitted that he had lied to police about the night of Lachie’s death before.
He initially said he had gone to an ATM to get $50 for his brother that evening, but he later confessed he used the cash to buy cannabis.
"You lied to cover yourself, didn't you?" Mr Simpkins asked.
"And others, yeah," Mr Scott answered.
Mr Simpkins put it to Mr Scott that Lachie had died earlier in the night and he had tried to cover it up.
"Despite the fact that [Lachie] was lost, missing, not there, your mother was panicking ... you elected to do nothing, is that right?” Mr Simpkins said.
"That's right," Mr Scott confirmed.
"You knew your brother was deceased at that stage, didn't you?" Mr Simpkins said.
Mr Scott denied the allegation, but when counsel assisting the coroner Simon Mount KC asked him, the witness agreed it would have been "out of character" for Lachie to run all the way to the oxidation ponds.
"It's the furthest he’d ever run," Mr Scott said.
He said when Lachie ran, he usually stopped and looked back to see if someone was following and if nobody was chasing him, he would be "quite upset".
Mr Scott said before the night of his death, the footpath outside their home was as far as Lachie had ever been and could not think of any reason why the child would have been behaving differently on the night he died.
The now 21-year-old’s version of events was that on January 29, 2019, his mother and Lachie picked him up from work and drove to the supermarket.
He said the last time he saw Lachie, he was watching videos in the lounge.
Later that night, a victim support representative came to Mr Scott’s home to talk to him and his brother.
Her job sheet from the night said "I asked them how they were coping. They just brushed it off as if it wasn’t an issue".
Mr Scott said that was simply the woman’s opinion and he did not want to speak to strangers about his brother’s death.
"You brushed it off because you knew more about what really happened to Lachlan, didn’t you Mr Scott?" Mr Simpkins asked.
The witness denied that was the case.
Yesterday, Deborah Thurston, a neighbour and friend of Lachie’s mother, was in the witness box and will continue giving evidence today.
