Documentary maker Tony Sutorius says footage from inside Pike River Mine that's never been seen before by the public shows an intact body.
He's hoping to include it in his upcoming film about former CTU boss Helen Kelly's final year of life.
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Ms Kelly, who died of lung cancer in October 2016, was involved in efforts to convince the Government to recover the bodies of 29 men killed in the mine.
"[The Pike River families] know that Helen was an essential part of their journey and was kind of like their spirit animal in a way," Mr Sutorius said.
"She got them up, she got them moving, she got them fighting and they're now winning and it's because of Helen's inspiration."
According to Mr Sutorius, the footage was shot inside the mine four months after the last fire and explosion and shows the intact body of a miner lying inside.
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That's important, because at the time the Government was saying no bodies could have survived the explosion.
"It's acknowledged, in fact, by the police and the chief executive of solid energy that [the footage] does show a fully intact, clothed miner," he said.
"He's lying on the ground, he has his knees slightly raised you can see the tread on his boots... Police Commissioner Howard Broad was saying at the same time that this image was shot that all they were, were a pile of ashes, and the families just had to accept that there was nothing there and it was time to walk away.
"It wasn't true. If you look at these images down the mine there's wooden pallets, there's plastic buckets, there's rubber hoses. It wasn't an inferno down there - that was simply never true."
The documentary on Ms Kelly is due to be released in cinemas on Suffrage Day, which is September 19.
Newshub Nation.
