Children find body in car | Rotorua Sport | Surfing, Rugby, Soccer, Football, Cricket in Rotorua

A body has been found in a car in a Rotorua street by a group of children and youths on their way to school.

The car was parked in Larch St in Glenholme, and was discovered by the students yesterday morning.

Police were called shortly after 8.30am.

Rotorua police are investigating what they have described as an "unexplained" death.

A woman who lived in the area and didn't want to be identified, said the body was discovered by a group of school students from Rotorua Intermediate and Rotorua Boys' High School.

"I heard them screaming and shouting but I thought they were just playing around on their way to school," the woman said.

"It wasn't until I saw police out on the road and they came to ask us questions that I realised what the children had found."

The woman said she was shocked to hear a body had been found in her street.

"It's normally a really quiet street. It's a shock to think something like this could happen around here." She said the car had been parked on the street since Thursday night but she hadn't taken any notice of it.

Another resident of the street, who also didn't want to be named, said police sealed off the area for about two hours while they removed the car with the body still inside.

The woman said she didn't recognise the car and believed it was not from the neighbourhood.

"The first I knew about it was when I saw the police out on the road and they were going around asking people if they saw anything."

She said it was a grisly find, especially for children.

"It's a bit of a shock, especially for some of the younger ones to have to see."

Detective Sergeant Tony Colby of the Rotorua Police said they were not treating the death of the 39-year-old man as suspicious but rather as an unexplained death until a postmortem could be carried out. That was expected to be finished today.

"Until we get the results back from the postmortem we can't really say where our inves-tigation is going at this stage," Mr Colby said.