David Lloyd club in dock over death of boy, 3, in pool
A leisure club accused of putting ‘profit before safety’ is to be prosecuted over the drowning of a three-yearold boy in its pool. rocco Wright was found unconscious beneath the water at David lloyd leeds by his father but it was too late to save him, an inquest heard.
steven Wright told the hearing his son’s death at the club in April 2018 ‘could and should have been prevented’.
The family said two lifeguards instead of one should have been on duty and the lifeguard’s chair had a limited visibility of the pool.
An inquest into rocco’s death ended yesterday with a jury at Wakefield Coroner’s Court returning a verdict of accidental death.
Now leeds City Council said it intends to prosecute David lloyd leisure ‘in the near future’ for offences under the 1974 Health and safety at Work Act.
The decision was made following an investigation by health and safety inspectors and is backed by rocco’s parents.
Commenting on the prosecution announcement, Mr Wright told iTV’s Calendar news: ‘We will hopefully get justice for rocco. Hopefully it will bring some closure.’
A 17-year-old lifeguard with less than three months experience was watching the 25 metre pool when rocco died. swimming lessons were going on at the time meaning many children were in the water.
Mr Wright, 42, said he was waiting with rocco and his four-yearold sister when he realised his son was no longer with him.
He added: ‘He had a natural fear of water so the last place i thought he’d gone was in the pool.’
Mr Wright, a finance director, thought rocco was hiding but soon ‘ started to really, really panic’. He said: ‘That’s when i looked at the main pool.
‘i saw an outline at the bottom of the pool. it was rocco.’
After the inquest Mr Wright and his wife Catharine, 41, said they were ‘shocked’ to hear that David lloyd had only one lifeguard on duty. And they were ‘devastated’ when they found out that lifeguard numbers had been cut despite staff raising concerns about ‘general safety at the pool’.
The couple said: ‘This, in our opinion, proves David lloyd put profit before safety.’
Club rules allowed one lifeguard to monitor 50 pool users – this figure was 38 when rocco died.
He was underwater for two minutes and the lifeguard, William Jayne, only realised something was wrong when Mr Wright dived in.
But Mr Jayne, now 19, told the inquest he had a good view of the pool from his chair. David lloyd’s operations director stephen Brown denied the death happened in the wake of cuts and said the budget was ‘significantly up’.
A company spokesman said: ‘David lloyd leisure never places profit above safety. subsequent evidence given at the inquest showed no evidence of budget cuts to lifeguarding at the club at the time of the accident.’
The spokesman added that they were unaware of the basis for prosecution.