1 Sunday ` brought to you by the first-ever Mazda CX3. Tonight on Sunday ` it was a shocking school death. Some of the children found him round the back hanging from the window. He'd stopped breathing. Yeah. They sent their 9-year-old to school,... It was like the bottom had fallen out of my world. ...and he never came home. There are just so many ways that this could have been avoided. Oturehua. Population 30. Something like that. Where are they, mate? Celebrated writer and poet Brian Turner on the wild places that are good for us. We are engaging in a lot of laying to waste around the place in the name of development. www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2015 Kia ora, I'm Miriama Kamo. When you send your child to school, you expect them to come home safely. But for 9-year-old Aryan Banerjee, it was the place which led to his death. Aryan went to the toilet on his own, unnoticed and unsupervised, then discovered he was locked in. Questions about why and how that happened are the subject of an ongoing investigation. However, as John Hudson reports, his parents are convinced it wasn't just an unfortunate accident. Aryan, you dive. 'I think it's every parent's nightmare.' You're gonna send your children to school and, you know, one of them is not going to come back. Are you taking a video? Mm-hm. Maumita sent her precious boys to school, but one of them didn't come back. I see it more as negligence rather than an unfortunate accident because there are just so many ways that this could have been avoided. The Banerjees live in Taradale, Hawke's Bay. Their boys, Aryan, 9, on the left and Anshul, aged 11, were close. They were as thick as thieves, both of them. Obviously, you know, with children that age, they do have little tiffs. However, the boys were very good at making up and, you know, being friends at the end of the day. They went to Taradale Primary School, just a few hundred metres from home. Go, Aryan! Nice pass! They were happy, you know, making friends and doing all their extracurricular activities and things like that. But on May 25, Aryan and Anshul left for school together for the last time. I had the principal of the school call up at work and say there's a terrible accident happened. And my first question was, 'Has the ambulance been called?' I didn't know it was this serious. I was just hoping he had broken an arm or a leg. Anjan was already there with Anshul and they were both crying. And that's how we realised what had actually happened. It was like the bottom had fallen out of my world. (SIGHS) I-I just froze. I... I saw him there and his eyes were open, but he wasn't seeing. Aryan was severely ill. His heart had stopped at some point. When they got him down, he wasn't breathing` And he was cold. > He was stone cold. TRANQUIL MUSIC The Banerjees had only recently moved to NZ. Aryan and Anshul were born in England, and their parents, Maumita and Anjan, met in India. Well, we had an arranged marriage. Um, I'll let Anjan explain that. BOTH LAUGH I thought, Well, I've got my membership to the Royal College of Surgeons. Time to get married now.' So Anjan's parents advertised in the Times of India for a suitable bride and took their son from his home in England to Calcutta for interviews. And then Mau comes into the foyer and Mum nudges me, and she says, 'She's coming.' And I turn around, and there she is. And it's kind of like my brain's dribbled out of my ears. (LAUGHS) I just watched her gliding across the floor. And I thought... yes. Their parents agreed; a full Hindu wedding followed ` all five days of it. Well, you do different rituals for different days, and then obviously the brides have to sit very quietly because you're supposed to maintain your composure. They're statuesque. (LAUGHS) And everybody else tells us what to do, and where to go, how to sit, what to eat, what to do, what to say. And it wasn't long before they had two baby boys born back in England. I was a staff surgeon in the hospitals working in orthopaedics. And things were not looking good, um, being downsized, downturned. So Anjan started looking abroad for a place to bring up their family. NZ seemed keen and open and welcomed me with open arms. Eventually they settled in Taradale. I absolutely loved Napier, obviously because of the weather, because of the schools, and I think I told Anjan then that it would be brilliant if we could, you know, move here and live here. But five months ago the Banerjees' happiness ended. What do you understand happened to Aryan at school? From what the police have told us, it was just before lunch, and the teacher had split the class into two groups ` one that was still finishing some writing work and one that was out with the teacher playing in the yard. Aryan, he says, was in the group left in the classroom. While they were doing that, the caretaker had gone to deal with a problem with the door handles in the toilet. And he'd taken the door handles off. And without handles there, if you shut the door, that's it. Aryan had left the class and gone to the toilet and couldn't get out, at which point he panicked and tried to get out of the window. His shirt had caught on the window latch, and obviously he'd not been able to haul himself back up. Some of the children found him round the back hanging from the window. He'd stopped breathing? Yeah. Aryan survived, his brain starved of oxygen. There were just so many facets of his brain which were affected quite badly, so we knew straightaway it was gonna be very very bad. Aryan was transferred to Auckland's Starship Children's Hospital; his brain seriously damaged. OK, darling. They said miracles do happen, so... I think we were holding and` Yeah. ...hoping for a miracle at that point. Just getting you some more medicine. So we were very bleak from the first` from the word go. Hi, Aryan. This is Mummy. Oh. I know. I know it's hurting. 'Right up till the very end I think I hadn't given up hope and I was just still hoping that, you know,' he would one day walk, or he would one day get up, but... but he had lost everything, like he didn't even recognise us even when he, you know, even when he opened his eyes. He was slowly dying. Yeah. And in the end his-his legs were getting bent. His whole... His whole body was just giving way. His brain just did not know how to coordinate, you know, how to actually keep things going. 15 weeks after he tried to climb out a window at school, Aryan died. He was an absolutely delightful boy, and he had this really dry sense of humour. You know, he was` he was a great friend to his friends. If he ever saw anybody bullying or, you know, other-other kids, he would just go up and stand up for the` for the kids who were getting bullied. He was a really lovely boy. SOMBRE MUSIC In Taradale, they farewelled their son. The help that we received from the people... was just unbelievable. You'd never have seen this in England. I think the community is what kept us going, to give us that strength because we don't have any family here. So I think I redefined my family, and I now say that the community is our family. Because when we actually needed somebody to talk to or things to be taken care of, you know, it was the community which was here for us. They took Aryan's ashes to Calcutta, his ancestral home. ANSHUL: So we are going to start sprinkling the ashes. We usually put the ashes back in the river Ganges because... that's` that's the end of his body and that needs to go into the sacred waters so that his soul can be at peace, and that's what we did. Indians believe that the soul is just... it moves from body to body. So he will go into another body at some point, and that's why we do all these rituals so he... he is born in a place where he finds happiness and peace. Statistically, school is one of the safest places your child can be. Sure, there are thousands of cuts, bruises and abrasions every year, but there are very few deaths. So what happened to Aryan? Could his death have been prevented? There are many issues. Was there an out-of-order sign on the toilet? Why was the class split? And who was looking after that class? Isn't this simply an unfortunate freak accident? I think this is pure negligence, and somebody need to take responsibility. I don't think this is just an unfortunate accident. Sunday has learned that another pupil was trapped in the toilets at the same school a few months earlier but was able to climb under the cubicle door. Have you heard of anything like this happening at the school before? > Yes. I am aware of-of one family who had an episode where their child was trapped in the toilet at Taradale Primary. What has the school said to you about what happened? They did say that they did an investigation, but we have not seen anything formally. We have not had a formal apology from them. Would you expect them to apologise knowing that there's still a WorkSafe inquiry underway? I think they need to man up and they need to, um... You know, they need to actually tell us what really happened with Aryan. If you did receive an apology, would that be the end of the matter or do you think there needs to be some form of compensation? I don't care about compensation. SOBS: Compensation won't bring Aryan back. (SIGHS) What I'd want is that they acknowledge it and that, you know, someone takes responsibility for what happened. It should never have happened. Aryan has gone, leaving anguish where once there was joy. I've struggled. I have... been trying to keep it in. What do you miss about Aryan? I think just his general happiness. He was always smiling, always laughing. SOBS: He was a beautiful little star. I just miss having him around. It's like a big gap that can never be filled. You just know that he's never gonna come back so... it's just difficult, very difficult. This week Taradale Primary School wrote to the Banerjees offering the family support and the opportunity to meet the caretaker and the teacher involved. Principal Marty Hantz told Sunday he is unable to comment on anything relating to the incident while an investigation is still underway. Next ` keen angler, fierce conservationist, competitive cyclist, celebrated writer, former Poet Laureate and all-round ardent Southerner ` Brian Turner on his love of NZ'S wild places. Some people are intimidated by the open air and they'll say there's nothing there. What do you see when you look out there? You've got some of the biggest, bunchiest snow tussocks remaining I've seen anywhere. It's just glorious. Then you've got the bloody pylons running along there as well. (LAUGHS) 1 Welcome back. He's a complex man living a simple life in the wild Southern landscape. Renowned poet Brian Turner, brother to sportsmen Glenn and Greg, adores his beloved central Otago ` a land that's healed him as he's fought to heal it. Here's Mark Crysell. ACOUSTIC GUITAR MUSIC It's easy to get lost in the vast, lonely majesty of central Otago. I was in a pretty bad state mentally, and I thought, 'Where can I go and heal a bit?' This is where Brian Turner came to find himself. And I went inland and I looked at the big skies, and the big hills and the open air, and, you know, 'For God's sake, do something, get your arse into gear as they say.' (CHUCKLES) You know, stop looking inward; try and look outward a bit more. MUSIC CONTINUES Oturehua is where his A got into G. The worst thing in the world for me in NZ would be told that I had to go and live in greater Auckland. A wee town in the middle of this huge landscape,... Oturehua, population 30. Something like that, yeah. Where are they, mate? ...but here you don't need to go online to see what your mates are up to. You might see yourself on TV. > BOTH LAUGH Are you on Facebook? No. Twitter? > No. Instagram? > No. Have you ever taken a selfie? Um... I think I did once because I asked someone, 'What the hell's a selfie?' And this is` wasn't all that long ago. And they said... (LAUGHS), 'Well, here, hold this up in front of you and click this,' so I did. And then I looked at it and I thought, 'No, I don't like that much.' He has a reputation as gruff and cantankerous,... MUTTERS: Come on, you bastard. ...but words aren't a problem; Brian Turner is one of our most celebrated poets and authors, a Southern man all the way down to the chill of his bones. Get in there, you bugger. How cold does it get here in the winter? Unbelievably cold. I go to bed sometimes with big woolly socks, balaclava. It's raw. It's nice and warm in Auckland. I rather like it, really. It's a test for a man, really. BOTH LAUGH Those tests started growing up as the oldest brother in one of our most famous sporting families. We had enough to come and go on, but that was all. We knew the difference between needs and wants. We lacked for nothing that was essential. And we were encouraged, and almost driven, to take part in stuff. He played hockey for NZ. The test match is all over. His brother Glenn was one of our greatest cricketers. Glenn would run until he collapsed trying to beat me. And Greg, the youngest, a professional golfer on the world circuit,... CROWD CHEERS ...while Brian caddied. And Greg won a couple of tournaments when I was there. He might have won one or two more if I hadn't been there. (LAUGHS) And at 71, he still chews up the miles on his racing bike. You know when the magpies are breeding because the bastards start bombing you. (LAUGHS) I've been hit on the back of the helmet by them. (LAUGHS) The oldest competitive member of the Central Otago Cycling Club; you'd better believe it. Do you reckon you could beat me to the corner? Go on. Well, if I couldn't, I'd be desolate. BOTH LAUGH It's not even close. Ah, yes! PENSIVE MUSIC When he arrived 16 years ago, this was the place where he could lick the dark wounds of a failed relationship. Some people are intimidated by the open air and they'll say there's nothing there. What do you see when you look out there? I see things that make my heart leap. You've got the Hawkduns. You've got some of the biggest, bunchiest snow tussocks remaining I've seen anywhere. > It's just glorious. Then you've got the bloody pylons running along there as well. BOTH LAUGH Yeah, that's to run your computer so you can write your stories. I know, I know, I know. Well, listen, mate, I'd like to have it all ways and I haven't got much time left. Plenty has changed since he's been here ` farming's more intensive, the wetlands are draining and dirty, native birds fewer; it worries him. He fought ferociously alongside his good mate Anton Oliver to stop Meridian's plan to build a $2b wind farm here, and won. Where do the limits lie? Limits to what we call growth. You know when you're using up nature's capital too fast, no doubt about it. Coming up ` how do Brian's green views go down with the locals? I assure you, I didn't plan this. I'm not a conspirator. ALL LAUGH I wasn't let in on all of this. GENTLE ACOUSTIC GUITAR MUSIC We used to walk into places that helicopters began to fly in. And it really pissed us off, my mate and I. I said we should take a bazooka in here and bring the bastards down. Spend time trying to keep up with Brian Turner and you realise that he doesn't just love this landscape,... We're in Brian's hands. ...he's actually become part of it. I'll find a way down. Eugh. I just love the sound and look of running water, the music of the river. You know, a river's never silent. Even its darkest pool thrives with a dreamy utterance or something, you know. I just think rivers are magical things, and, you know, it... it really disgusts me the extent to which we've been polluting them, you know. It's terrible. You know, people say to me, 'Oh, talk about resources.' I say, 'What are you talking about? Birds, fish, trees?' Let's be open and honest here what we're doing, you know. We're engaging in a lot of laying to waste around the place still, in the name of development. But these sorts of views haven't always been mainstream around here. Do you consider yourself a local? I wouldn't know. I would be seen as an Otago boy, right. And, um, more than that you'd have to ask other people. So we did. This is him ` Mr-Mr Brian Turner. These ladies are from the Ranfurly book club. Did they tell you I've got a new book coming out which is all about the area here? Unfortunately, they're a book club in name only. We haven't got any books. We don't read books. LAUGHTER But whether they consider Brian a local or not, they do share some of his views. Brian, you have brought a lot of our... our worries to the fore, and that's good. It-it brings discussion. Yeah. I assure you, I didn't plan this. I'm not a conspirator. LAUGHTER I wasn't let in on all this. And they don't get any more local than Stuart Duncan. How long have your family been here? Uh, 1863 they come out to the gold fields. That's a long time, mate. Yeah, nah, it's a day or two. The Duncans farm the 5000-hectare Wedderburn Station, but a quarter of their income comes from tourists cycling the Central Otago Rail Trail. Many come here to see the land that Brian Turner writes and fights for. He's a bit of a character, and his-his views when you see what's happened in the rest of the world and central Otago especially, they've... they've come real. The poet and the farmer may have been on opposite sides of the fence once but their views are a lot closer these days. With the painters and the writers, people listen to them more than probably just the farmer. So we're probably havin' our points of view expressed, but just a different medium. I guess if Brian's done one thing, he's made us aware of what was here. You realise you are part of a special part of NZ. See, for me the most pregnant words, important words in the language are love, and home, really ` four-letter words. I've always felt a deep sense of belonging to down here. And, you know, if I'm flying in on a plane from overseas, you know, I've got to wipe the eyes away, you know. Turners were` Turners weren't supposed to feel like that, and they're told, 'Oh, they're hard,' and all the rest of it. Well, I just think... soft-centred, really, marshmallow. OK, before we go, Brian, I just think we should take a selfie. What do you reckon? Oh yeah, definitely, mate. As long as you put it up so the world can see. Look at that. Handsome men. Smile. (LAUGHS) Look at that. Beautiful. Brian's book, 'Boundaries ` People and Places of Central Otago', was released on Friday. That's our show for tonight. Do join us on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks for joining us this evening.