A family shattered by grief

Kapuni sharemilker Aaron Frank is unhappy his farmer boss didn't take steps to fence his house or the pond where his daughter died.

He was speaking out for the first time since his three-year-old daughter Summer drowned in a cowshed effluent pond last Thursday.

Hours earlier, Mr Frank, his pregnant partner Kelly Hughes and their surviving son Brodie, 2, farewelled Summer in a moving service at Cleggs Funeral Services' chapel in Hawera.

Some 250 family and friends attended the ceremony, releasing pink balloons as the hearse containing Summer's tiny coffin drove off.

Speaking to the Taranaki Daily News last night, Mr Frank believes a fence around the house or the ponds could have saved his daughter but his efforts to get either built had been unsuccessful.

Mr Frank said he arrived back at their Skeet Rd farm after the funeral last evening, to find the farm owner Francis Mullan, of Rahotu, putting up a clothesline behind the house.

"If we'd had a proper fence around the house it wouldn't have happened. I'm pretty thick-skinned but it's been a hard couple of days.

"He's going to fill in the pond and put in a sump and an irrigator, an enclosed system.

"I don't know when."

Mr Frank claims he first asked Mr Mullan to fence off the house last August, but Mr Mullan said he wanted to level up the section first.

"I sort of left it then because we were busy with calving. My mother asked him again later and Mullan didn't even want to talk to her."

He said he didn't want to portray Mr Mullan as uncaring.

"He has been a great boss. This has hit him pretty bad."

At the funeral yesterday Mr Mullan came up and shook his hand and said he was sorry, that if he'd known this might happen the house fence would have been up straight away.

Asked what he thought had happened to cause the tragedy, Mr Frank said "I don't know, those kids are just so quick.

"The house is in a separate paddock from the ponds. I built the fence between the house and tanker track and ponds, a seven-wire fence with four hot wires, but it's a dairy farm fence, the kids can get underneath.

"It's hard when you have to milk and watch the kids all the time. I'm blaming myself to a degree."

The Franks have been sharemilking for six years and this is their first farm where the house hasn't been fenced off.

"I don't know how we'll be able to carry on at this farm. At this point we are staying on, but how I feel right now I don't really want to.

"Kelly's baby is due on August 2. Our focus is on her having a problem-free birth. She has to be careful. Having another child might help us get through it.

"My advice to other farmers and sharemilkers is that if there's a pond nearby, put a seven-hot-wire fence around it. This one would have cost less than $1500.

"I was going to fence these ponds but they were made bigger and there was piles of dirt put up around them. I wished now that I'd just done it.

"Me and Kelly want people to have good fences around their houses, whether it's on a farm or in town."

Last night, Mr Mullan told the Taranaki Daily News a fence around the house had not been put up was because the land needed to be levelled.

"You have to level the land to put up a fence. It rained for two months and the place was under water at the back of the house."

Mr Mullan is upset that a seven-wire fence around the paddock containing the effluent pond has not been mentioned until now.

"It was human error why the kid drowned. The fence is there, the gate was open."

He says the gate separating the pond from the house was left open most of the time and Summer and Brodie found their way to the pond.

He says the focus has shifted from Summer's death and on to who is to blame for the death.

"All they are doing is trying to blame everything else but themselves.

"The whole thing has shifted away from the little girl's death and it's now all about trying to make the Mullans pay.

"You ask any farmers. They will have caravans and safely fenced-in areas in their cow shed so they know where their kids are when they are milking.

"We had it for our kids. You are responsible for your own kids to keep them safe on the farm."

Mr Mullan said the effluent ponds would be closed in, replaced by a sump and an irrigator, an enclosed system.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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