The disappearance of Aisling Symes, a two-year-old girl of Irish and New Zealand descent, occurred on 5 October 2009 in New Zealand. Like Madeleine McCann two years earlier, it was initially thought the girl had been abducted but on 12 October 2009 it was confirmed that a body had been located in a storm water drain on a property adjoining the one from where she went missing. The body was confirmed to be Aisling's. Did Madeleine McCann actually wander off and suffer the same fate as Aisling Symes?
Seems some of those very close to the family felt she could very well have wandered off!
www.miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=5702.msg224878#msg224878
Aisling Symes was just two years old when she disappeared while Madeleine McCann was almost four.
Aisling's disappearance attracted headlines in New Zealand and Ireland, particularly as child abduction was an unusual occurrence in New Zealand. One New Zealand police inspector even went as far as to claim on Morning Ireland that only five children had disappeared in his country in the previous fifty years. The New Zealand Herald said nine children had disappeared without trace in the country in sixty years, at least two cases of which involved more than one child at a time. Forty members of the New Zealand police were quickly put on the case. This had risen to sixty by the end of the first week and was set to rise again before her body was located.
Sophie Tedmanson of The Times newspaper compared Aisling's case to that of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, a famous missing person's case in the United Kingdom. Paul Chapman did the same in The Daily Telegraph. Her parents have said their "thoughts and prayers" are with the Symes family.
A number of suspects and several cases of mistaken identity resulted from the case. However, on Monday 13 October 2009, police confirmed in a press conference that a body found the previous night in a drainpipe in Henderson was that of two-year-old missing toddler Aisling Symes. Police inspector Gary Davey, head of the Aisling inquiry, says the body was removed from the scene at 1am of 13 October. Mr Davey says the body of Aisling probably lay in a drain within metres of scores of police and searchers for days after she disappeared. The drain, that was two metres below the ground, was thoroughly searched by officers with special search techniques used to check the drain. Mr Davey says cameras were used to reach 9–10 metres into the drain, but the search proved fruitless. A decision was then made to dig up part of the drain, a digger was called in and it took five hours until Aisling's body was finally found inside. When police were first called to the Symes house, a police officer searched the pipe three times, Mr Davey said. The manhole cover was ajar about 10 cm and the first police officer looked down the pipe and there was no sign of a body. "He called out and did not hear anything other than running water," Mr Davey said. The officer then searched towards the stream and 15 minutes later returned to the manhole, climbed about two metres down the larger access pipe after moving the manhole cover back. He shone his torch down the smaller 375mm drain at the bottom and could see nothing. He also called her name but there was no response. "He believed he could see five metres up into the drain and five metres down the drain." The drain was searched for a third time later in the night by search and rescue searchers, Mr Davey said.
During the search Aisling's father Alan Symes also climbed down the pipe and looked for his daughter, said Mr Davey. Mr Davey says it is too early to tell how Aisling got into the drain, but police believe no foul play was involved. "I believe it is more likely or not that she was there from the start and I believe it is misadventure," he says. He says police are still treating the Henderson property as a crime scene, and that they are keeping an "open mind" about the situation.
Waitakere Police later said the results of a post mortem on Aisling Symes were consistent with drowning. Inspector Gary Davey, Waitakere Area Police Commander, said he was unable to comment on the specific details of the autopsy but there was no evidence of injury.
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Aisling_Symes231
