Police have revealed that recent images captured from the borehole drilling programme indicate the possibility of human remains.
The father of a Pike River Mine victim has today been left “shocked” by a police comment that a decision on whether criminal charges will be laid won’t be made until later this year and questioned whether the rationale is “politically motivated”.
Bernie and Kath Monk were visited by police on the West Coast of the South Island this week and shown images of potential human remains inside an area of the coal mine where their son Michael was believed to have been working when it exploded more than 12 years ago.
Police and mining experts have been drilling holes deep into the underground mine, which exploded and claimed the lives of 29 men on November 19, 2010, searching for more clues in the ongoing criminal probe into the disaster.
Today, police revealed that new images captured from the borehole drilling programme indicate the possibility of human remains in the vicinity of borehole six.
Today’s announcement has further upset Monk, especially over the time it has taken for police to investigate and decide whether charges will be laid.
Images from as early as 2010 and 2011 showed images of men inside the mine, and of conditions that were conducive to a re-entry to retrieve the victim, Monk says.
He has been critical of WorkSafe and the Government for not going back in to retrieve the bodies.
“You could walk up there in your slippers,” he said. “There’s a bit of rockfall and coalfall here and there but you could walk up there so easily.
“This has been a huge cover-up.”
Detective Superintendent Darryl Sweeney, the current officer in charge of the police investigation, took questions at a media conference today. Photo / George Heard
Monk is “shocked” that police can’t make a decision on whether criminal charges won’t be laid until later this year.
“Are they waiting until after the election? Is it still politically motivated?” he asked.
“They should have it all by now. Because I am telling you, we have got the information ourselves. I can’t see why they can’t make their decision now.
“We haven’t sat down and waited for police to do all this. We’ve brought our own experts in … and we’ve got more than enough ourselves, without relying on police to bring charges. But in fairness to police, we are holding back on going public on a lot of this stuff that we have got and know so we will not jeopardise their investigation.”
The failure to retrieve the bodies is “unforgivable”, Monk says, in what he calls “one of the biggest industrial homicides in New Zealand history”.
Detective Superintendent Darryl Sweeney, the new officer in charge of the police investigation, fronted a media conference in Christchurch earlier today.
“We recognise this is an incredibly difficult process for the families of the 29 men killed at Pike River,” Sweeney said.
“While we can’t say with any certainty that we’ve located human remains, we have shared what we’ve found as well as the pathologists’ conclusions.
“Our thoughts are with the families as they process this news.”
When the borehole stage ends in the next few weeks, the criminal investigation will conclude, Darryl Sweeney says. Photo / George Heard
Work began on 10 additional boreholes in late January this year.
The final three holes will be drilled in the coming weeks, concluding the police investigation at the mine.
Sweeney said he hopes they will have some conclusions by the end of the year.
“We’re close,” Sweeney said.
He added they now have the “facts and evidence” to be able to make some decisions.
However, he wouldn’t say if anyone would be charged at this stage.
In November 2021, a specialist borehole camera spotted the remains of at least two men, with the possibility of a third, in an area where six or eight men were working at the time of the explosion.
The bodies are in the “furthest part of the mine from the entrance”, which means police will not be able to recover them.
“It’s not unexpected, we know there’s 29 men down there and we’re drilling boreholes where we know people were working,” Detective Superintendent Peter Read said at the time.
“We still haven’t finished the boreholes yet so there is a possibility there might be more [bodies found] - we can’t rule that out.”
Smoke billows from the ventilation shaft after the fourth explosion in the Pike River coal mine where 29 miners and contractors died. Photo / File
“It’s not unexpected, we know there’s 29 men down there and we’re drilling boreholes where we know people were working,” Superintendent Peter Read said at the time.
“We still haven’t finished the boreholes yet so there is a possibility there might be more [bodies found] - we can’t rule that out.”
WorkSafe laid charges against former Pike River boss Peter Whittall in 2013, but the case was dropped after a $3.4 million settlement was paid – a deal the Supreme Court later said was unlawful.
The money was split between the two survivors and the families of the 29 missing, a total of $110,000 for each man who had been down the mine that day.
Australian company VLI Drilling, which employed three of the men who died, also pleaded guilty to health and safety charges and was fined $46,800.
Pike River Mine family members Anna Osborne (left), and Sonya Rockhouse have never stopped fighting for justice. Photo / Mark Mitchell.
The Pike River Recovery Agency (PRRA) completed its $50m re-entry of the mine’s access tunnel to try and recover remains and find any forensic clues in 2021.
It had been due to permanently seal the mine while police were partway through their borehole investigations.
But some Pike River families who lost loved ones, and had fought for years to try and get authorities to try and find their bodies, launched legal action to try and stop it from happening.
Some of the families, like the Monks, remain hopeful a criminal prosecution is still possible.
