By Finn Blackwell of RNZ

The school attended by murdered children Yuna and Minu Jo says it’s shocked and saddened the Ministry of Education did not report their disappearance to police.

The children, aged 8 and 6 respectively, attended a local primary school in Auckland before they were murdered by their mother Hakyung Lee in 2018.

Their bodies were not discovered until 2022 in suitcases, when an Auckland family bought the contents of a storage locker in an online auction.

Lee was sentenced to at least 17 years’ jail last November.

Ministry documents released to RNZ under the Official Information Act in January showed Yuna and Minu Jo’s absences took years to be referred to the attendance service, rather than months.

The Ministry of Education commissioned an external review to discover how the failure happened and to tighten procedures to ensure the failures did not happen again.

In a statement, the Papatoetoe South School Board said they were shocked and saddened the ministry had not reported the children’s extended absence to police.

“While we were aware of the systemic complexities involved in inter-agency referrals, seeing and feeling the consequences of these gaps is devastating,” they said.

“This tragedy brings to light the vital importance of transparency of process and robust communication between key child support agencies.”

The board said the loss of the children had been felt profoundly by the school community.

“While our school feels this gap deeply, we recognise and respect that the greatest burden of grief lies with their whānau and those closest to them.”

Out of respect for the police investigation and family privacy, the board said it had been very careful about how it moved forward, but they believed in honouring students in a culturally appropriate and meaningful way.

“We always acknowledge those we have lost during Matariki, and this Matariki will provide our first opportunity for our school community to come together and remember Yuna and Minu privately and respectfully.”

They hoped the external review would lead to a system that was more fit for purpose.

Issues identified in failure to report disappearance

Ministry documents showed the system failed to require the school to submit a non-enrolment notification.

Deputy secretary Helen Hurst said the ministry worked internally to analyse how the school attendance systems had operated in Minu and Yuna’s case.

She said issues had been identified and “processes had occurred” that contributed to the gap between the children returning to New Zealand in May 2018, a month before their murder, and the case going to attendance services in 2020.

“Without those issues, it is likely that the referral would have taken a matter of months following their return rather than years,” Hurst said.

The ministry was not notified at any point that the students were re-enrolled elsewhere, and police were not contacted prior to their investigation, she said.

A timeline showed the ministry’s efforts to find the children.

The non-enrolment process for both Yuna and Minu was initiated in September 2020, two years after their murder.

Case notes from the ministry show home visits were made, immigration checks done, and emails were sent to the children’s school and mother.

By June 2021, there had been no response from Lee, who by then was living in South Korea.

By August 2022, a note said there had still been no contact and the ministry did not know where the children were.

Hurst said the ministry had done further analysis of its systems, and commissioned an external review of how attendance systems and processes operated in the case of Minu and Yuna.

“While the primary role of attendance systems and services is to support students to attend school, we are committed to strengthening the role that the ministry plays, alongside other social sector agencies, in providing a system of support for the safety and wellbeing of children,” she said.

“There is a considerable amount of work under way to improve the support that is provided for school attendance, and any findings from the external review will help us to inform this ongoing work.”

Hurst said work was under way to establish an information sharing agreement with police, to ensure children missing from school are found.

“Work is also underway with police and Oranga Tamariki to provide simplified processes and guidance for steps to be taken any time an attendance service provider has concerns about the welfare or safety of children,” she said.

The ministry had increased the frequency of six-monthly requests to MBIE and Immigration New Zealand, which checks for the return to New Zealand of students who were unenrolled with a reason of “gone overseas”.