After 72 years, this tragic case is closed

BY SHANE COWLISHAW

'I'll be fine," 12-year-old Ronald Thomas called out to his mum as he chased his new beach ball into the surf at Sumner. They were his final words.

Minutes later, Ronald and his 11-year-old sister, Irma, disappeared under the waves. Their bodies were never recovered.

Ronald and Irma's brother, Laurie Thomas, and sister, Beverley Van, sat on the rocks overlooking Sumner Beach yesterday to reflect on the loss of their two siblings 72 years ago.

Earlier, in the Christchurch Coroner's Court, they listened as, in just 30 minutes, the tragedy reached its conclusion with a finding that Ronald and Irma had died from accidental drowning. At last, the deaths had been officially recorded through the determination of the children's Christchurch family.

Laurie Thomas had not been born when the pair were swept out to sea on January 6, 1938, but yesterday the 69-year-old was in court with his three elder sisters to hear the coroner's verdict.

The tragedy unfolded as Ronald was playing with his new beach ball – a Christmas present – just off the rock wall running out from the beach at Scarborough.

As he waded into the water after the ball, he called out to his mother that he would be fine. Irma followed him in.

"The ball drifted out with the current that always runs alongside the wall and both children suddenly vanished, without a sound or struggle," The Christchurch Star-Sun reported at the time. An elderly fisherman who was sitting on rocks nearby said he saw the ball float by in the current, but no sign of the children.

Despite the efforts of the beach patrol and later search efforts by police and the children's father, their bodies were never found.

The children's parents died of natural causes within months of each other in 1943, and the remaining siblings were sent to live with relatives.

In 1991, Edna Corbett, who was 14 when her brother and sister drowned, requested a copy of their death certificates, assuming that an inquest had been carried out.

She spent the next five years being bounced between departments, including the police, Internal Affairs and the coroner's office, which all said records of the pair's death did not exist or had been destroyed.

In 1996, the deputy chief coroner told Corbett that the matter could be taken no further without any official records.

"I wrote to everyone possible. It's just amazing that there was nothing," Corbett said. "You can only flog it so far when you're not getting anywhere."

Last year, Laurie Thomas read about Maureen Boyd, who had been granted an inquest into the disappearance of her brother from a Wellington wharf in 1941. With advice from Boyd, Thomas contacted the Crown Law Office after collating every article about the drownings that had appeared in newspapers at the time.

To the amazement of the family, the response indicated changes to the Coroners Act in 2006 meant an inquest could proceed.

That day arrived yesterday when Coroner Garry Evans officially declared Ronald and Irma had drowned accidently. The coroner said after the hearing that he believed the case was the most delayed to be heard in New Zealand.

Thomas paid tribute to his sister, who had started the process, and said the decision closed a sad chapter of the family history.

"Having an inquest is like having a memorial funeral service in a way because it gives closure to their disappearance and their deaths," he said.

"This is the brother and sister I never knew. I never had a chance to know them."

Van was only three on the day, but said she still remembered parts of it.

"When I went home, all I was given for tea was jelly," she said.

The family felt they owed it to their deceased siblings to seek an inquest, and it was a relief that it was all over, she said.

Corbett said the inquest had great meaning for the family.

"One of my daughters said, `I don't know what your whining about Mum, it's only a bit of paper', but it's not like that."

With no death certificate, it was almost as though Ronald and Irma never existed.

But now, Corbett said, they could rest in peace.

- © Fairfax NZ News