Man dead, little girl missing after boat found drifting on Sydney river

By The Times of Australia

A Saturday on the Parramatta River has turned into a grim police operation, with a man found dead in the water at Concord and a young girl still missing hours later.

Emergency crews were called to Bayview Park, off Burwood Road, just before 11.45am on Saturday after a passer-by on the water spotted the man’s body. Police say the man has not yet been formally identified.

What followed was the sort of detail that changes the whole weight of a job. Officers from Burwood Police Area Command were told the man had been seen a short time earlier in a small boat with a child.

The girl, believed to be about six or seven years old, had not been found by late afternoon.

Police set up a command post at the scene and called in specialist resources, including marine police, divers and police aviation, as the search pushed on across the Inner West waterway. ABC News reported the pair were from the Westmead area and that the girl’s mother had been notified.

At this stage, police have not said how the man ended up in the water, whether the boat capsized, or whether anyone else was involved. That is the hard edge of the investigation now: a dead man, a missing child, a drifting boat, and a stretch of river being picked over for answers.

Bayview Park sits on Hen and Chicken Bay, a pocket of the Parramatta River that can look calm from the bank but is still open water, with channels, moorings and enough movement to make a search difficult once time starts slipping away.

The case is not being treated publicly as a crime at this point, but it is firmly in police hands. Officers have appealed for anyone who saw the man, the child, or the small boat before midday to come forward.

Anyone with information is urged to contact Burwood Police or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000. Police have asked the public not to send information through social media pages.

Image: Bayview Park ferry wharf, Concord. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.