Body of drowned schoolboy found
PA Auckland A caretaker found the body of a drowned schoolboy, Michael Stewart, on the bank of a stream running through a public golf course in Auckland yesterday morning. The discovery on the Chamberlain Park course ended a search that began on Monday afternoon when Michael, aged 15, a pupil at Mt Albert Grammar School, was swept by raging stormwater, into a long culvert. A fellow pupil, Karl Mottram, aged 13, said that six to eight boys had been swimming in the floodwaters, with about another dozen watching. They were jumping into the swift waters, then grabbing hold of branches or
rocks and clambering out before reaching the culvert’s entrance. Karl ran to his nearby home to call the police at 2.10 p.m., after pupils began shouting: “There’s someone gone down, there’s someone gone down.” Inspector Gerry Hugglestone said that Michael appeared unconscious to witnesses who saw him float into the drain. He may have knocked his head on a nearby bridge. The group of third and fourth formers had gone to the stream at the rear of their Alberton Avenue hostel, after being let out of school early because of a rained-out sports day. Some were wearing their physical education gear. Michael had finished his exams for the year and this is the last week of school for 1985 for Mt Albert Grammar’s third and fourth formers. The stream area has previously been the subject of concern to nearby residents worried about youngsters playing in and near it. The police were investigating whether a school teacher knew the pupils were swimming in treacherous flash floodwaters. Senior-Sergeant Tim Lynch-Blosse said that some of the swimming pupils had told of a schoolmaster being in the area. The police were to visit the school yesterday to interview staff and pupils and clarify details of yesterday’s drowning.
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Press, 4 December 1985, Page 2
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309Body of drowned schoolboy found Press, 4 December 1985, Page 2
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