Category: Thame news

IF you’re still scratching your head for a Christmas present for that dreadful couple you meet at dinner parties, you know the sort, been everywhere, done everything, send their four year-old kids to Chess classes, Palates for Little Ones and Konman Maths, then politician, TV host and father, Boris Johnson MP, may have the answer.
Boris’s latest book which he also illustrated, is called ‘The Perils of Pushy Parents’ and is a modern-day cautionary tale, available for under ‘a tenner’.

Synopsis (from Waterstone’s website – Link

“The nicest kids you ever saw Were Jim and Molly Albacore! Alas for Molly and Jim, their lives were not entirely cushy: Their parents were so very pushy. Mr and Mrs Albacore will do anything to get their offspring to the top of the pile. Father reads great literary works to them before they are even born, and puts them down for MENSA at five. Mother is not content unless her darlings are the star of every show. Molly and Jim, however, are happiest eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and watching telly.
In this very funny book, Boris Johnson issues a verse warning to all pushy parents! if you push your children far enough they may push back, with dire consequences. Illustrated with delightful line drawings by the author.”

Available from The Book House, Thame

THE parents of an 11 year-old boy who drowned at Thame swimming pool three and a half years ago, said after hearing the inquest jury’s verdict, said that they were ‘appalled’ by the Coroner who they accused of not giving all the available evidence to the jury.
After nine days of hearing evidence from lifeguards, teachers, swimming instructors, doctors and expert witnesses, the jury returned a verdict this afternoon of Drowning, with the follow narrative:

“At around 11.15am on July 12, 2004, at Thame Leisure Centre swimming pool, Oxfordshire, Nathan Scott Matthews was taking part in adequately supervised school swimming activities.
During an organised race, for reasons that cannot be ascertained, Nathan Scott Matthews went underwater and remained submerged until rescued. Based on the evidence we have heard, we believe this period of time to be between 30-45 secs.
Despite all reasonable efforts being made to revive Nathan Scott Matthews at poolside, in transit and at hospital, attempts were unsuccessful and Nathan Scott Matthews died at the John Radcliffe Hospital on July 12, 2004, at 12.30pm.
After considering the expert medical evidence and on the balance of probability, we were unable to identify the primary event that lead to Nathan Scott Matthews’s drowning.”

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A VERY angry, at times emotional Mr Terry Matthews, Nathan’s father, said: “I feel as though our son’s death has been ‘swept under the carpet’ by this inquest, and that there has been a total disregard for his life.”
“Some of the things that were said in that inquest were not accurate and different from what people said at the time.”
“I am absolutely appalled,” continued Nathan’s mother, Penny.
“After three and a half years, I am no further forward with finding out how my son could be under the water for between 30-45 seconds, without any of the many adults, supposed to be looking after those children, pulling him out.
“I feel that I had put Nathan into the most dangerous environment, with an unqualified lifeguard; if I had known, he would never have been on that trip.

“I would warn all parents to check any lifeguard’s qualifications before allowing their child to take part in any swimming activity.
“A young, healthy person does not drown unless things are not as they should be. We still have no answers.”

(See previous reports of evidence given that the lifeguard, Rob McGill was considered to be suitable qualified by his employers, Soll Leisure Ltd.)

Nathan’s sister, Jo Matthews, read out her own statement:
“My brother Nathan was a great person and I feel that I haven’t got the answers that I was hoping for. I feel that Nathan was just ‘swept under the carpet’ and the thought of him just lying on the floor of the pool for 30-45 seconds, with no one helping him, makes me sick and angry, and will haunt me for the rest of my life.”

Oxfordshire County Council, Swimming Instructor, Sara Allen’s employers, issued the following statement:

“Oxfordshire County Council has facilitated and supported a full inquiry by way of an inquest into Nathan’s tragic death.
It has lasted for two weeks wih all relevant witnesses attending together with independent expert witnesses.
The jury’s narrative verdict contained the view that the lesson was adequately supervised and that all necessary attempts at resuscitation were undertaken.
There has not been, and should not be, any criticism of the council, school or leisure centre staff involved in this tragedy. They acted with professionalism at all times. All have been deeply affected.
The sympathies of all at the council are with Nathan’s parents and family who have acted with great dignity throughout in the face of the necessarily distressing evidence as to what happened that day.”

Nathan’s Headteacher, Andrew White, said after the inquest: “This has been an awful ordeal for the family, the school and the community as it has rekindled memories. Our thoughts and sympathies are with the family. We are still without answers as to why he died.
The one comfort is that everybody did what they could reasonably be expected to do to save Nathan’s life. Tragically, they were not able to save him.
“I will go back and share the news and go through the findings with the staff. It has been acknowledged that everyone did what they could but it doesn’t change the sadness we feel but we feel reassured by that.”

Penny Matthews told ThameNews.Net that she had just received a phone call which informed her that parents and others from Stokenchurch, where the family live and where Nathan went to school, were “outraged” at the news of the verdict and that a group of them had told her that they will be organising a petition for a Public Enquiry.

As they left to return home, Mrs Matthews said that her and her husband “were not finished yet,” and that after trying to make Christmas the best they could for their other children,” they would be discussing with their lawyers where they would be going from here.

The Health and Safety Executive, which oversees local authorities’ Leisure activities, and the South Oxfordshire District Council’s own Health and Safety Inspectorate, will be going away to consider the verdict and the evidence they have heard throughout the inquest, before deciding whether any criminal charges are to be brought against any local authority involved or Soll Leisure Ltd.

Decisions are not expected for several weeks.

Mr and Mrs Matthews told reporters that they would like to thanks the following people for their support:
Solicitors, Simpson and Miller
The Communication Workers Union
The Centre For Corporate Accountability – Maninder Jalaf
FACK – Families Against Corporate Killing
David Liddington MP
and all those who expressed encouragement and support on Nathan’s web page.

THE investigating police office in the Thame drowning case, currently the suject of a Jury Inquest, has today said that there is no suggestion whatsoever that bullying played any part in the death of 11 year-old Nathan Matthews.
Detective Sargeant Alan Clements, based at Thame police station, was questioned for the second time today about his investigation into the death of Nathan.
D S Clements told the Coroner that the case was “tragic but not suspicious.” He said that during his investigations, he found no suggestion of Nathan being bullied at school, adding that there had been a “large amount of mis-representation in the press” shortly after the incident, which had an effect on the staff and children, one of the girls in particular suffering from Post Traumatic Disorder.

He said: “I found it inconceivable that an eleven year-old could drown and I would like to have come up with an answer for the family but I am unable to do so.”

Following questioning by the Matthews family lawyer, DS Clements re-itterated that from his evidence gathered from other children in Nathan’s relay team and others, and their positioning at the time of the incident, he was sure that Nathan had been under the water for between 30-40 seconds.

Tomorrow the Coroner will give his summing up and the Jury will consider their verdict as to the time, the place and the circumstances of Nathan Matthews’s death.

Photo: Penny and Terry Matthews, Nathan’s parents.
Courtesy of the Daily Mail website (Copyright applies)

AN expert in drowning and resuscitation told the inquest into the drowning at Thame swimming pool in 2004, that the victim, Nathan Matthews, probably suffered a blackout under the water before drowning.
Dr Anthony Handley said that, although other reasons for Nathan becoming unconscious under the water could not be ruled out, he was of the opinion that two of the more likely causes, ie either a seizure or an attack of arrhythmia (too slow, too fast or irregular heart beat) were improbable. He was of the opinion that the most likely cause began with Nathan hyperventilating (over-breathing) after using up most of the oxygen in his lungs due to the amount of effort he was exerting during his swim.

Dr Handley went on to explain that at that point, Nathan would probably have then gone under the water, either voluntarily or not, with insufficient carbon-dioxide to trigger automatically the body’s urge to take a breath, and so, starved of oxygen, he passed out and at some point probably suffered a cardiac arrest.
After a short while of unconsciousness, explained Dr Hadley, the muscle spasm that automatically ‘kicks in’ when people go under water to close the airway to prevent water going in, would have relaxed and water would have entered Nathan’s lungs and drowning would have begun.

This so-called ‘Shallow Water Drowning’, as basically described above, is, said Dr Handley: “Considered to be a relatively common cause of death in water,” where typically the victim has not been seen to thrash about and struggling but just found quietly on the bottom.

Dr Handly confirmed yesterday’s evidence that from what he had heard and seen, Greg Boult and Rob McGill, the two lifeguards, correctly carried out CPR in an effort to save Nathan, until the ambulance arrived.

The inquest jury also heard evidence and discussion about whether Lifeguard, Rob McGill, had sufficient qualifications. Both Lifeguard trainer, James Wright, and Adrian Bidwell, Soll Leisure’s Group Head of Operations at the time of the incident, told the inquest that at that time, Part Two of the nationally recognised, Lifeguard qualification, for which there is no evidence that Rob McGill took, was not a requirement for practicing lifeguards.
Adrian Bidwell went on to explain that Soll Leisure ensured that all its lifeguards took their own ‘Induction course’ which was equivalent to Part Two of the Standard Royal Lifeguard qualification, and that, although the papers confirming Rob McGill’s passing of the induction course had been lost since, “We had satisfied outselves that he was competent.”

In response to a question about criticism aimed at Soll Leisure’s training methods for lifeguards, made during a risk assessment in November 2003, Mr Bidwell said that changes had been made and that the company had made “substantial improvements” since.

The inquest will resume tomorrow, when Detective Sgt Alan clements will give his evidence and the Coroner will begin to present his summing up to the jury.
It is expected that that jury will be asked to begin considering their verdict on Friday morning.

Photo: Drowning and resuscitation expert, Dr Anthony Handley

THE inqusest into the death of 11 year-old Nathan Matthews at Thame swimming pool almost three years-ago, continued today, when the jury heard evidence from two Pathologists.
Both Dr Stephen Gould, the Consultant Paediatric Pathologist who carried out a post mortem examination on Nathan’s body, and Dr Nathaniel Carey, a Consultant Forensic Pathologist, suggested that Nathan’s death was probably not a straight forward drowning.
Dr Carey is the eminent Home Office Pathologist who gave evidence at the enquiry into the death of Victoria Climbi

THE Inquest Jury looking into the facts that lead to the death of a young swimmer at Thame’s Jubilee Pool almost three years ago, saw video interviews with his classmates today.
Although the children’s accounts of what happened on that day, July 12, 2004, were inconsistant, and can only be legally considered as ‘heresay’ because they were taken between 2-4 weeks after the incident, several themes ran through their accounts.

Child A, who was to follow Nathan in the relay race after he had dropped a ‘sinker’, described how Nathan looked pale that morning, and that he did not seem to be concentrating but talking to someone, and had to be told when it was his turn to go.
He described the moment when he realised something was wrong and Nathan had gone under the water, apparently to drop a ‘sinker’.
“We waited for about half a minute, but when Nathan did not come back up, someone told one of the teachers,” he said.

Child B also remembered Nathan looking pale, and related how, after he did not re-appear from under the water, she bent her head into the water to look for him and saw him under the water “curled up and looking very small.”
She said that she told Child A to go and call a lifeguard.
She described Nathan as not being a very good swimmer and usually ‘a bit of a joker’ but that he was quiet on that day.
Later in the interview, Child B recollected how, back at school later that day, after she had heard that Nathan was being treated in hospital, she heard the news of his death on Fox FM.

Child C spoke about hearing an alarm going off in the pool area from where he was in the Leisure Centre’s Cafe area.

Child D described how she was swimming in the lane next to Nathan, in another team, from where she saw him go under the water and as she got closer, saw him “splayed out like a starfish,” about a foot from her leg.
“I thought he was going to grab my leg,” she said, “so I swam away.”
She described seeing a lifeguard as “just standing there.”
This particular child also described Nathan as “pale and quiet.”

Child E described Nathan as being happy on that day and cheering everyone on. “He went under,” she said, and we waited for a bit – we thought he had forgotten that he had the hoop (sinker).”
“(Child B)… then told us that someone was on the bottom. She alerted the lifeguard (swimming instructor) who then ran round.”
When questioned further about what she saw, this witness said: “It looked like he was going to get the hoop, rather than drop it.”

Child F, who was the first in Nathan’s team to go in the relay race, said that he thought Nathan did not realise that he had to drop the hoop (sinker.) He described how Nathan carried the sinker over his arm as he swam.
When asked about the positions of the adults at the pool side that morning, this witness said that he could remember one lifeguard sitting in the chair, and possibly another somewhere else. He recalled seeing swimming teacher, Mrs Allen standing by another group of children to his right (group 3 of 5 strung out along the side of the pool).

The final video interview showed Child G describing how she shouted, “What are you doing?” at Nathan.
“We thought he didn’t understand that he had to DROP the hoop,” she said. “He didn’t understand (before the race) what he had to do and I had to explain to him what to do,” she added.
This witness too, recalled one lifeguard sitting in the seat and another walking around.

Apparently, as well as the reliability of the Stokenchurch School children’s evidence being reduced because of the time lapse between the incident and their interviews, their accounts can only be considered as ‘heresay’ because of the considerable amount of discussion that went on among themselves and their community during the days between, and their ages (11 years).

One witness however, who is now 15 years-old, will be giving evidence in person on Monday afternoon, following a site visit by the Jury in the morning to Thame pool.

Photo: Thame Swimming pool (Library picture)

THE Jury Inquest into the death of Nathan Matthews, who was dragged apparently unconcious from Thame swimming pool, continued today with the jury hearing evidence from the two lifeguards and an ambulance crew member who were all involved in trying to save the boy.
After recalling how he helped perform CPR with his Duty Manager, Greg Boult, Rob McGill, of Mitchell Close, Thame, who was 17 years-old at the time of the incident was questioned about his Lifeguard qualifications by the Matthews family solicitor. Although admitting that he did have to re-take the section of his training that dealt with resuscitation, and that he did not know where the documentary evidence that he had passed the second stage of his lifeguard exams was, Rob McGill said: “As far as I am concerned, I passed it.”

He was also asked whether part of his duties was to be aware of early signs of dangerous situations developing, and whether, in his scanning of the pool, he remembered being aware of Nathan moving his head rapidly from side to side as he swam and causing splashing.
“No one particularly stood out for that reason,” replied Rob McGill.

“Did you think that anyone of them (the pupils taking part in the race) could have slipped under the water?” asked Mr Samuels.

“Everyone was diving or going under the water – I was continually looking at each one,” replied Rob McGill.

After continuing to quote training manuals and the operating procedures of Thame Pool, Mr Samuels was firmly told by the Coroner, Mr Nicholas Gardiner: “We are here to find out what happened, not what should have happened.”

Rob McGill also denied that his attention might have been focused on one particularly weak swimmer and the pupil who suffered from epilepsy.

There was some cross examining of both men over the availability and use of special rescue masks, designed to give a better seal around the mouth of a patient during CPR, as well as some hygience benefit.
Both Greg Boult and Rob McGill said that in the urgent situation they found themselves in, the use of the masks had not occurred to them.

Another point of discussion was the ratio of chest compressions to breaths into the patient during CPR – whether the accepted rate, at the time, for a child i.e. 5-1, or that for an adult, 15-2, was appropriate. (The two men had carried out two cycles of the child ratio, but had proceeded to that for an adult when it had become obvious to them that the smaller ratio was not having any effect).

Later, in his evidence, Ambulance Technician, Robert Gilley, said that nowadays, 15-2 is the accepted rate for a child or an adult, and that it would not have made any difference to Nathan at the time which ratio had been used.

Rob McGill described how on July 12, 2004, he had first become aware that there was a problem when he heard a whistle and saw Sara Allen, the swimming teacher, moving quickly around the edge of the pool. He said that he then ran back a couple of paces and pressed the alarm before running to where he could see someone was under the water.

Both Rob McGill and Greg Boult described how Nathan’s condition suddenly deteriorated and he stopped breathing and how he had began chest compressions while Greg did the mouth-to-mouth. The Jury then heard how an abulance crew arrived and attempted to re-start, what the Ambulance Technician described as Nathan’s fibrilating (fluttering but not pumping) heart, with a Defibrilator and intravenous drugs, but to no avail.

Mr and Mrs Mathews, Nathan’s parents, through their solicitor, expressed their thanks for all the ambulance crew had done to try and save their son.

Nathan was then taken to the John Radcliffe hospital where he was later pronounced dead.

Tomorrow, Friday, the Jury will be shown the video statements of eight of Nathan’s class mates, taken after the incident and on Monday morning, will visit the Jubille pool, Thame, to see for themselves the scene of the tragedy.

THE Thame swimming teacher who tried to help save the life of a pupil who later died, told an inquest jury today about what she called: “The worst day of my life!”
Sarah Allen described how she ran around the edge of the pool to reach Nathan Matthews who had disappeared from her view, just as she heard a child shout: “Nathan didn’t come back!”
She told the Inquest Jury how she got into the water, submerged and pulled the boy, who was face up and clutching a green ‘sinker’, out of the water and placed him on the pool side.
Mrs Allen said: ” I thought he was recovering from a fit. He was was gurgling and moaning but I could not get his teeth apart to check his mouth. He was still breathing and when I pinched his thumb, it went pink so I knew his circulation was OK.”
She went on to describe how she left Nathan in the hands of the life-guard, and rushed into the medical room for a blanket, before returning to the medical room and bursting into tears, shouting: “Get me out of here; I have to get away from here!”

Other evidence heard today, the second day of the Inquest, included questions about whether swimming hats over ears would effect the children’s hearing of instructions (No, according to Sarah Allen and Louise Kippen (Teacher from Nathan’s school in Stokenchurch); the various responsibilities of school teachers, swimming teachers and Life-guards; whether the levels of life-saving skills of the two swimming teachers were adequate (they both contended that they were there to teach and not as life-guards, though they both had a basic life-saving qualification); what the correct position is for ‘the Recovery position’ (here a difference between the view of Louise Kippen and Sarah Allen, the latter insisting that Nathan was put in the correct position); how much noise was there in the pool (all witnesses saying that although the children were cheering on their friends, it was not excessively noisy – “All very well controlled,” said teacher, Mr Brian Maker).

Although Nathan’s mother, Penny Matthews, said yesterday that Nathan had missed some swimming lessons because she had withdrawn him due to bullying, class registers from the period shown in court showed that he had only missed one, on June 21, when the whole of his year missed the session because they were away on a school trip to Torquay.

There was also some discussion about a difference between Oxfordshire County Council’s swimming guidelines and those of the operating procedures of the Thame pool. Sarah Allen said that they complimented each other and both contributed to the safety of the children.

The Coroner, Mr Nicholas Gardiner, intervened when the solicitor acting for the Matthews family suggested that Sarah Allen’s attention was distracted away from the relay race going on at the time of the fatal incident, by a pupil at the other end of the pool who was performing particularly well following initially being very nervous in the water.
Mr Gardiner repeated Sarah Allen’s own statement that it was unfair to ask her to speculate about what might have happened.

Before Sarah Allen and given her evidence, Stokenchurch school teacher, Mr Brian Maker, spoke about the effect of the tragic incident on the whole school.
“Our children were devasted,” he said. “The situation was not helped by the fact that we were not allowed to say what had happened, and yet the children and the parents had to read in the papers that Nathan’s head had been held under the water and that he had been murdered by their friends.”
“Whoever wrote that stuff wants shooting,” he said.

The Coroner agreed, saying that such inaccurate reporting was: “Irresponsible.”

Mr Maker described how he went in the ambulance with Nathan and how they were met at the John Radcliffe hospital by a medic who asked if there was any previous illness or known reason why Nathan was in the condition he was.
“Something doesn’t seem right!” Mr Maker reported the medic to have said.

The Inquest will continue tomorrow when video evidence from Nathan’s fellow pupils is expected to be shown to the Jury.

THE mother of 11 year-old Nathan Matthews, who died after what was meant to be an end-of-term fun session at Thame’s Jubilee Pool, was among those who gave evidence to an inquest Jury into the cause of her son’s death today.
Postwoman, Mrs Penny Matthews, of Water End, Stockenchurch, spoke about how her son was a very active boy, who loved sport and was particularly passionate about bootball. The day of his death, July 12, 2004, she said, was the first time he had resumed swimming lessons for four weeks, because she had withdrawn him from school because of bullying at the bus stop.
“The school had been unwilling to do anything about it,” she said, “so we asked the police to deal with it and they had.”
In answer to questions about his health, Mrs Matthews said that, despite an incident about seven weeks before, when her son had spent the night in hospital for what was diagnosed as a viral illness, he was fit and healthy and that there was no family history of heart or cerebral problems.
She said that on the morning of his death he had not eaten breakfast, being keen to rush off to school and play football.
Mrs Matthews described how she arrived at the John Radcliffe Hospital where a nurse was still doing chest compressions but that Nathan died at 12.30 pm. But she said, she continued to talk to him because a nurse told her that hearing is the last sense to go.

Teacher, Mrs Carol Whitham, who described Nathan as “particularly energetic,” explained how she realised that there was a problem when she heard fellow teacher, Louisa Kippen, shout: “Someone is in trouble!” and noticed that it was Nathan and saw swimming teacher, Sara Allen, pull him out of the water.
Both she and Louisa Kippen described how Nathan seemed determined to win, moving his head vigourously from side-to-side and making a lot of splashing.
Mrs Whitham said she went very quickly to Nathan and spoke to him, urging him to wake up rubbing his back. She expressed to concern to the two pool-side attendants dealing with him that he was cold and that his lips were going blue. At which point someone appeared with a blanket.
Both teachers said that CPR was not begun on Nathan immediately because, they pressumed, he was still breathing. Louise Kippen said that she heard him moan a couple of times and later, that her impression of him at one point was that he seemed rather stiff.

Questions from the Solicitor acting for the Matthews family included references to what appeared to be glare on the pool surface in a series of photographs taken later in the afternoon on the day of Nathan’s death. None of the witnesses remembered noticing either refections or glare on the pool surface at the time of the incident.
Other questions centred around whether Nathan had been put in the ‘recovery position’. Mrs Whitham said that she thought not, and that both his arms were on the same side of this body as he lay on his side. Louise Kippin’s evidence concurred with this impression.

Learning Support Assistant, Natalie Hoare, spoke about how she noticed “a pair of black trunks” on the bottom of the pool after noticing someone running along the poolside, shortly before an alarm went off.

The Coroner had to adjourn the hearing because evidence and questions could not be heard due to a Christmas junket going on in the cafe adjacent to the Coroner’s court. Throughout the afternoon, it was very difficult for the public, the Press and the Jury to hear what was going on very easily, due to the poor sound system in the room.

The Inquest will continue tomorrow, and expected to last at least another seven days.

Photo: Penny and Paul Matthews, and one of Nathan’s sisters, who were in court today to hear the resumptioln of the Inquest into Nathan’s death.