KEY POINTS:
Every weekday parents send their children off to school trusting they will be kept safe. Carol Neal and Sharon Jopson were no different.
Although their sons had their difficulties - one had behavioural problems and the other physical and intellectual disabilities - they felt they were in good
hands at South Canterbury's Waimate High School.
But on a cold, drizzly day on February 10, 2000, when Glenn Jopson, 13, failed to meet his mother after school, and the school bus did not stop to drop Hamish Neal, 15, off at his home, it was apparent something was wrong.
In the chaotic hours that followed, the two mothers were given the horrifying news that their sons had drowned in a school outing to a popular local swimming spot known as the Black Hole, on the Waihao River.
"I don't remember much after that. It pretty much destroyed me," Ms Neal told the Herald. "I always thought I could trust the school - that they would return my child safely."
This week, after a seven-year struggle to get the school to admit it was negligent and formally apologise, the school reached a legal settlement with the two mothers.
"It hasn't really sunk in yet that it's finally over, and I can move on," Ms Neal said.
The settlement came just three days before what would have been an emotional battle for compensation in court. The content of the settlement is confidential, but both mothers say it is acceptable to them.
They always argued the school had been negligent because proper procedures were not followed, and only one teacher, Vanessa Mulvihill, was there to supervise 13 children.
The 13 children all had difficulties or disabilities of some form.
When Glenn struggled to stay afloat, Hamish went to help and was dragged down with him.
The lawyer for the school, Phillip James, would not comment on the case and Waimate High School board of trustees chairman Ken Buckingham said only that he was delighted a settlement had been reached.
"In a case like this, there can be no real winners."
Mrs Mulvihill is in Australia and could not be reached. But in a statement to the coroner's court after the drownings, she said a woman who had offered to help with supervision on the outing never showed up.
When Glenn told her he did not think he could get back across the swimming hole to where Mrs Mulvihill was, she told him: "Of course you can, Glenn."
She said when Glenn and Hamish started struggling she got in the water to try to help them but got tangled and dragged down, and eventually had to get out because she couldn't breathe.
She was then told the boys were still in the water and sought help, but it was too late.
Waimate High School rector Mathew Henderson told the coroner's court he approved the school outing and did not view a standard "risk management form" before the trip, which he felt was discretionary.
Waimate coroner Bernard MacGeorge made a series of recommendations to avoid such a tragedy happening again, but did not find the school to blame.
The way the school handled the deaths also left the mothers deeply upset. Ms Neal said she found out from friends who heard on the radio that two boys on the school outing were missing before eventually being told by a policeman that Hamish was dead.
Ms Jopson sat with Glenn's upset friends in his classroom for about two hours before being told his body had been found.
"It was terrible. Just a nightmare."
