Aisling's family with 'so many questions' - uncle

David Ball. Photo / Richard Robinson

The uncle of toddler Aisling Symes says her family is living through waves and waves of grief.

Police last night found the two-year-old's body in the stormwater drain at 5 Longburn Rd, about 20m from the home of Aisling's deceased grandparents at No 7, from which she went missing last Monday.

David Ball said while there was some solace in having Aisling back, there were "so many questions not knowing what happened".

Mr Ball and another family member are due to speak to the media at 3.15pm at the Henderson Police Station.

The head of the police inquiry into Aisling's disappearance says he is satisfied police did as much as they could to find her.

Inspector Gary Davey said the exact cause of Aisling's death would be determined at a post-mortem examination being carried out today.

"We still have a lot of work to do to find out how Aisling came to be in the drainpipe which runs the back of several properties in Longburn Road, Henderson," he said.

Police and later Aisling's father searched the drain on the day she went missing but her body was not found until about 8 o'clock last night.

Mr Davey said he believed police had done all they could to find her.

"I'm confident that the police did everything that they could that night to find her within that drain, with the resources that they had," he said.

"You need to bear in mind that she was found 36 metres from the manhole and a metre-and-a-half underground."

Mr Davey said when a police officer first looked down the pipe on the day of Aisling's disappearance he saw no sign of a body.

The officer then searched towards the stream and 15 minutes later returned to the manhole, climbed about two metres down the larger access pipe after moving the manhole cover back.

He shone his torch down the smaller 375mm drain at the bottom and could see nothing. He also called her name but there was no response.

"He believed he could see five metres up into the drain and five metres down the drain," Mr Davey said.

The drain was searched for a third time later in the night by search and rescue searchers, Mr Davey said. Aisling's father Alan Symes also climbed down the pipe and looked for his daughter.

Asked why the drain was searched a fourth time, Mr Davey said police had hit a brick wall in their investigation.

"It was the fact that all of our lines of inquiry were not really leading us to anywhere positive, there was no further sightings of Aisling and the Asian woman was proving very difficult to find," Mr Davey said.

Mr Davey said when the search was reviewed this week a decision was made to use specialist techniques to search the drain and the camera probe was put down.

"We searched both ends of that drain with cameras. Even as a result of that camera search we were still unable to locate or identify Aisling."

The decision was then made to dig up the drain, Mr Davey said.

It eventually took five hours work of digging and the use of a concrete cutter to find the body, he said.

"Unfortunately once we did cut open the drain we were able to see Aisling," Mr Davey said.

"I truly hoped we would find her alive and bring her home to her family," he said. "Sadly that is not to be the case."

Aisling body was removed from the drainpipe about 1am today.

Family distraught

Mr Davey had yet to inform Aisling's family of all the details around the discovery of her body.

He said the family were "extremely distraught" and when they felt up to it he would sit down and answer their questions.

"I visited the family last night, they are extremely upset to the point of being distraught," he said.

"My heart goes out to them for losing their little girl and I know it's going to be a very tough few days.

"It is small solace to know that at least the one small thing is they can now grieve and move on and have their little girl at home."

Mr Davey said the Asian woman, seen walking a dog in the street where Aisling went missing eight days ago, had been identified, but not yet located.

Identification had been through profiling people who had in the past shown suspicious behaviour and activity.

Family's Facebook posting

A message on the Facebook page 'Find Aisling' set up by Aisling's family today thanked people for their support and asked them to pray for them "as this is going to be the hardest time of our lives".

"I am extremely devastated to have to report to you that Aisling's body has been found in a drain near where she went missing," the posting read.

"If even the smallest positive can come from this at least we know we did all we could, it was a national effort, and thank you all for that, it did bring us together as a country, and proved at least that we are a nation full of caring and compassionate people, who genuinely want to help those in need, thank you all for that.

"Also, there is slight comfort in knowing that she is safe in heaven, and being held and looked after by God himself."

NZ Herald reporting team: Edward Gay, Rachel Tiffen, Andrew Koubaridis, Mathew Dearnaley, Yvonne Tahana, Beck Vass, Kara Segedin and NZPA