Launch Aground In Search For Girl

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30962, 19 January 1966, Page 18

Launch Aground In Search For Girl

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, January 18. The police launch Lady Elizabeth went aground on a sunken punt in a channel near the mouth of the Hutt river today during a widespread search for a missing girl. The body of the girl, aged two and a half, was later found under long grass on the banks on the river.

She was Sharee Linda Ell. eldest child of Mr and Mrs G. Ell, of Mudie street, Lower Hutt. About 68 police and civilians searched Lower Hutt streets and more than two miles along the banks of the river for six hours before finding her body. The Lady Elizabeth, with the senior launch-master, Constable C. Bryan, and Constable B. L. Borgfeldt aboard, hit the submerged punt when returning from the search. The tide was on the ebb when they went aground and early tonight they were reported to be bailing out the craft. A member of the water police said the launch would be manned until high tide about 3 a.m. when an attempt would be made to tow it off. Earlier it was feared that

as the tide ebbed the launch would capsize.

Sergeant F. L. Pickering, of the wharf police, said late tonight the vessel had stopped listing and was safe. An attempt would be made to tow it off early tomorrow. The search for the girl started about 1 p.m. The girl’s grandfather, Mr C. A. Woods, of Woburn, said Sharee was playing when she disappeared. She had crawled up a steep bank on to the west side of the river.

The police believe the girl was drowned in the river and the receding tide left the body on the bank.

Mr F. G. Heard will be commissioned as inter-church aid secretary of the National Council of Churches at a short service in the Cathedral chancel at 5.15 p.m. on February 1. The president of the council (the Very Rev. M. W. Wilson) will conduct the service and he will be assisted by the vice-president (Brigadier L. Miller) and the Rev. A. I. Macleod.