Ep5 - Te Kaha
In January 2005 Kelly Robinson said goodbye to her 13 year old Stephen, as he left to go fishing for the weekend with his friends Mikail and Hamish, in the care of Hamish's father. She didn't know that it would be the last time that she would see him alive.
The next call she would receive about Stephen was to tell her that he was missing presumed drowned. The boat that he was in with his friends had been capsized by a breaking wave and although Stephen's lifejacket surfaced, he didn't.
4 days after the accident Stephen's body was found and Maritime New Zealand launched an investigation into how the accident happened.
We follow investigator Domonic Venz as he tries to unravel what went wrong on that tragic day. He must find out what led the boat to capsize, and what safety precautions had been taken to ensure the boys' safety.
The question he must ask is did the skipper meet all his obligations under the Maritime Transport Act or not?
Special Investigators has been given incredible access to the story, and through interviews with local police, the two surviving teenagers on the boat, and dramatic, never before seen "live footage" of the accident, the story gradually unfolds in front of us.
Domonic discovers that although all the boys were wearing lifejackets on the boat, Stephen's had been zipped up, but not clipped up. It seems that it was ripped off him in the accident and he was left with nothing to keep him safe in the water. He also discovers that the conditions on the day of the accident were particularly rough at Maraitai Bay, So rough in fact that the local holiday park owner refused to sell launching permits in the morning. Although other boats did get out safely in the afternoon, many chose not to launch at all, or chose to launch from alternative launch sites a few minutes down the road.
The final act of the story is played out in Tauranga District court as Maritime New Zealand Prosecute the skipper of the boat Predator for 2 breaches of The Act. Will the judge find that he should have done more to keep Stephen safe, or not?
For more information see the
Maritime
NZ website.
