Police name boy found in lake

A family member mourns as she clutches the shoes which belonged to the teenager. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Police divers have found the body of a 17-year-old boy who went missing after diving off a cliff into a lake on Auckland's North Shore yesterday.

Police said divers found the body of Raphael Alualu of Mt Roskill at 10.30am in the quarry lake, next to Lake Pupuke.

The dive team was flown up from Wellington to search for the business school student when he failed to surface after jumping in the lake yesterday afternoon.

A police investigation into Raphael's death is under way and the Department of Labour is considering a separate inquiry.

A spokesman for the department said a decision on an investigation was expected within two days.

Police said they were in close contact with his family and arrangements had been made for a Samoan Priest to attend the scene with relatives. Local kaumatua will also be in attendance.

Group exercise

Raphael was part of a youth group on an exercise at Lake Pupuke and was one of several teenagers who dived about 10m from a ledge near Shea Terrace in Takapuna into a freshwater arm next to Pupuke.

Witnesses said the teenager surfaced briefly after jumping into Quarry Lake about 2.40pm yesterday.

But he then sank from view.

Police and paramedics were called, and firefighters used ropes to abseil down the cliff to search for the boy.

Distraught family members were at the scene. One woman stood clutching Raphael's shoes and crying at the water's edge, while others tried to comfort her and appeared to pray.

'Really good guy'

The owner of the School of Business in Newmarket, Lyndon Cooper, told the Herald four of his staff met Raphael's family last night.

"We're trying to do everything we can for them. They're absolutely distraught."

The school would be counselling the students and the tutor who were also on the trip, he said.

"The tutor's not doing very well. Another staff member had to take him home and console him. The students aren't doing much better."

Mr Cooper described Raphael as a "really nice guy".

"He had a really smiley face and was just a really good guy."

He did not have details about what had happened at the lake and was in a "state of shock".

Asked why the students would be jumping into the water he said: "I have a very limited knowledge of what they were doing today."

The students were a "diverse" group. Some were enrolled in short courses, and others were on fulltime year-long studies.

At the same time as the 16-year-old went missing, teenagers in another group were also jumping into the lake.

One injured her back and was taken by ambulance to hospital.

The North Shore Squash Club is on Shea Terrace, and club president Pat Menzies said he had warned young people of the dangers of jumping from the cliff only days ago.

"I said 'if you're not careful there will be an accident and someone will get killed down there'."

Also last week he rang the council and left a message asking for a corner at the end of the squash club property to be fenced off to stop people slipping around and jumping.

"It needs a fence down towards the quarry to stop these young kids getting in and jumping off."

Mr Menzies said the club paid to extend the fence last year, raising its height and putting barbed wire on it.

But people still managed to get through - even using wire cutters.

"It's an ongoing concern. It's not that we don't like kids, but that [the drowning] is the result of it, unfortunately."

A woman who works at the squash club saw the boys leaping off the cliff in front of the fence.

"They were jumping off there and when I parked I was going to go over and tell them then, but I thought I'd bring my things inside first.

"As I was going back out, they all just ran screaming down the driveway."

She said another group of young men were standing on the other side of the quarry, also yelling.

Even as officers took down police tape near the quarry a group of teenage boys who had been swimming nearby told the Herald the accident wouldn't stop them jumping from the same cliff.

One said he would do it again today if he could.

- With NEWSTALK ZB and NZHERALD STAFF