 This morning I'm here to confirm that the young lady who lost her life tragically in surface paradise last year, last night, was a 17 year old woman from Brisbane. This morning I have met with their family, I have been with the young lady's mother and father. We won't be releasing her identity at this stage. The family are deeply traumatised, as you would expect, and they're asking us to respect their privacy, that is what a very difficult time for them. Similarly it's not our intention at this day to request the parents to identify their school until everyone's had an opportunity to be advised. Whilst I was with the parents this morning, friends had started to arrive and were offering them comfort. So it's been a very tragic night for all of us and has put a very dark cloud over what has been a very successful schoolies event. Our message tonight or today is for the rest of the evening is that schoolies stick with the campaign that we had, look after yourselves, look after your mates, stay together and be careful. It's our hope that the schoolies will tonight enjoy their last night as best they can, but do so in a safe manner. We particularly ask that any schoolies who want to celebrate tonight on their balconies of their units, they do so carefully that they stay away from the balconies and that they take care of themselves and others at that location. As of this morning the arrests for schoolies numbers are the same as they were last year and until the events of last night this had been a very very good schoolies and for most of the people that were there they were having a great time. I was very fortunate to be having to be a part of a walk around on Monday night and to see so many young people enjoying themselves the way they were. It was just a great thing to see. Thank you. Questions? How will your investigation proceed? The investigation will proceed as we would normally in any other circumstance. We will prepare a report for the coroner and a coroner will obviously make a determination as to the cause of death. Shall we still let them see now though conducting their investigations at the hotel? No we've gone from the hotel at the moment. What we are doing today is trying to locate and interview a number of people who may have been witnesses to the event who can help us fill in some pieces that we still don't know. You know so far. It's difficult to say but other to say that we believe that the death is non-suspicious. It's really not appropriate to comment as to the circumstances leading up to young lady's death they will be matters for the coroner to consider. She's fallen from the 26th floor of the Chevron license building. Yes we believe so. We can't comment at this stage really. We have to prepare a report for the coroner and we're still going to have investigations going. There's a lot of people we need to speak to as you would imagine. Each and every one of these schoolies have so many friends and they talk to so many people so there's a lot more work we still have to do and it's really been appropriate to make further comment. Quite a number of her friends have been spoken to but having said that there's a much broader and wider group of people that we need to speak to and try and piece together all of her last non-murderance. No no just through our investigations today we've been able to establish a number of things which I'm not likely to discuss really. She was on her own. Yes she was on her own. It's my understanding that yes she was sharing that unit with other people. It's my understanding at this stage we've identified about six people who have actually witnessed the fall from various locations. There may well be many others too and we're hopeful to speak to some of those people today. She fell into a garden area at the Chevron Renaissance Hotel. On the fifth floor yes. That's my understanding yes obviously a number of people actually saw the fall. They've gone to the location and police and emergency services have responded as consequence of course. Certainly we're providing counselling at the moment to a large group of people who are involved in the response to the incident. We wouldn't at this stage be providing counselling to those. We will probably assist wherever we can to steer people in the right direction for those who need counselling and I'm sure there'll be quite a number of people who have been terribly traumatised by this event. Will police consider in future trying to prevent schoolies accessing balconies during schoolies week? That's almost impossible. Most of the schoolies accommodation is high rise accommodation. Most of that accommodation has balconies. It's always one of that greatest fears of course. The message we had before schoolies was you know be careful on the balconies, look after your mates and it's one that we've always been concerned about and our message is will and always will be you know be careful on those balconies, stay away from the rails. I really have no idea at all. I am aware of one of the balconies fall about 10 years ago but I'd suggest that there may not have been any since, they're particularly associated with schoolies. If he was alone, I mean how important is that for schoolies to I guess stick together you know that message about staying together, that message is really critical for us. We want the schoolies to have a great time but we wanted to do it together, we wanted to stay safe and look after each other and that was their message and that was their message right from the start so we'd continue with that message and implore kids tonight to look after each other and stick together. Are you able to save our college drugs to play a part in this at all? No I'm not. Has it been for you to get witnesses to come forward? Have you had many people come to you with information? Yeah we certainly had a lot of people who have come forward and we would probably think or suggest that there have been quite a number of people who may have seen something or part of it or all of it who haven't come forward so part of what we'll do today will be going to that location and seeking the assistance of people who are staying in the location. Were there lots of people around? I really don't know but at that time the night you suggested a large proportion of the young people would have been down at the beach down at the hub as they normally are it's a bit of a throng at times people are coming and going young people tend to move between accommodation houses and visit friends and or go down to the hub or just go for a walk so it's it's difficult to say just how many people were at that location at that time and I know you said she was staying with a number of people can you tell us how many people that you're able to stay within that unit? It's my understanding that she was sharing a unit with one other person One girl? I believe so yes Like a family member or a cousin? Not that I know of no And was she out elsewhere? Was she at that beach? I really don't know where she was I can't comment on that I'm sorry And she okay? How did she go? Um I don't know personally but I probably suggest to you that she be quite traumatized by this event as are so many other of the young people that stay in that location and it will probably just descend a cloud upon the whole schoolies event whilst they come from many different backgrounds and schools they are really one together when you see them down there and this will impact on all those young people I'm sure A tragedy like this does it make you reconsider holding schoolies? Um no this is really a singular tragic event and I have to say that the whole event is well organized it's well run and it's pleasing only the other night the number of people the young people come up to us and say thanks for looking after us it's great to see you here we feel really safe and it's really heartening to see that and that's that's what many of the young people are about they're just there to have a good time it's unfortunately from time to time we do have you know a small number of rested overnight but they have a very small proportion of the actual school leavers that are there Is there anything police could have done do you think to prevent this or to try and prevent similar things from happening in the future? In this particular case absolutely not About 9.30 I really can't comment that W matters for the coroner to consider and it's inappropriate to discuss the lead-up to a tragic death No we understand that it means six people actually saw the fall actually witnessed the fall yes I'm not sure of that but um I think that some of them may have been on other other balconies and actually saw saw the fall yes I believe that to be the case That will be matter for family they're obviously trying to contact lots of friends and relatives and let them know other other family members have only contacted very early this morning when I was with the family so that process is going on and we really need to respect their privacy they are a very personal and private family and the message that I've got from the parents this morning is please respect that privacy Okay thank you Sorry an incident yes there were two school leasers taking away in some sort of involving drugs and ecstasy in a house in the broad beach do you know too much more about that? No I don't sorry Obviously those sorts of incidents so you know school leasers with drugs and alcohol the stuff that we're trying to avoid in these sorts of matters as well Look at it really unfortunate that there are very small proportion of school leas who do spoil the event for themselves by using drugs and alcohol so that does happen we don't deny that there have been drug arrests but tragically as I say a very very small percentage and if you go down there you'll see that most of the kids are just having a great time enjoying themselves after they finish school Okay thank you It's not much to debate though about you know school leasers doing the wrong thing on balconies and things like that is that the case in this? No look anecdotally I think in the past there might have been a lot of that sort of thing that went on but we've been quite strong in our message and so have the accommodation providers about behaviour on balconies about safety on balconies and other than the one incident which has been you know relayed in the media but the young fella having a sleep on a balcony there have been no incidents on balconies this year at all it's been a really remarkable event I think there was no inappropriate behaviour on a balcony last night no no last night was it was a really quiet night actually