JUSTICE FOR ZANE
New hope for parents blamed for death of flood tragedy son as top MP attacks ‘seriously f lawed’ inquest and demands...
IT IS hard to imagine that anything could deepen the agony of grieving parents after the sudden death of a young child.
But after losing their seven-year-old son Zane, Nicole and Kye Gbangbola learnt to their horror that they were being blamed for his death by the authorities for using a petrol pump emitting toxic carbon monoxide to clear water from their flooded home.
Yet the couple from Surrey insisted there was a very different explanation for the tragedy: the hydrogen cyanide firemen had detected inside the house.
For two years they battled to establish the truth – only to be left devastated when earlier this month a coroner found the pump was to blame.
But now the parents have been given new hope, after Shadow Home Secretary Andy Burnham launched an outspoken attack on the inquest – branding it ‘seriously flawed’. Accusing the coroner of failing to call key witnesses, Mr Burnham said there had been an obvious attempt to ‘discredit’ the griefstricken couple, who deny using the pump.
He is now demanding an independent review of the case, similar to the one for which he long campaigned for for the Hillsborough families. ‘This was a flawed inquest,’ Mr Burnham told The Mail on Sunday. ‘Justice has not been served in this case.’
Floodwater rose around the outside of the family’s riverside home in Chertsey, Surrey, during the storms that battered Britain in February 2014. Backed by compelling evidence, Nicole, 39, and 50-year-old Kye have always believed the floodwater in their home was contaminated by toxic hydrogen cyanide from a former unregulated landfill site. They argue it was this, not carbon monoxide, that killed Zane.
Since his death the couple, both environmental experts, claim to have encountered bureaucratic secrecy and failings at every turn, with vital evidence and witnesses ignored.
And they described the verdict of senior Surrey coroner Richard Travers – who accused the Churchgoing couple of providing ‘inaccurate information’ while under oath – as a devastating final insult. Today, The Mail on Sunday can reveal the key points that cast serious doubt on the inquestnquest ruling:
The coroner ruled that Zane had a carbon monoxide level of eight per cent in his blood when he died – but experts say death from poisoning normally occurs only at 30 per cent or above;
Neighbours living 20 yards away never heard the petrol pump that the coroner insists was used for six hours – even though it makes a noise equivalent in decibels to a speeding express train;
Firefighters detected a lethal level of cyanide in the house but found no carbon monoxide;
Blood samples were not taken until three days after Zane’s death – by which time experts say cyanide gas would have left his body;
Vital evidence, including minutes of an emergency Cobra meeting, was withheld from the inquest.
From the outset, Zane’s parents say they were repeatedly stymied by officialdom. And shockingly, they were forced by the coroner to sign a gagging order threatening them with imprisonment if they shared or published recordings of the inquest hearings. The move was blasted last night by former Crown Prosecution chief, Sir Keir Starmer, who said: ‘Open justice is a key legal principle in our country. To prohibit Mr and Mrs Gbangbola from using a recording of proceedings which were open to the public is unjustifiable. They have already suffered enough.’
The grieving couple’s concerns over the landfill site have been rejected for the past two-and-a-half years by the Environment Agency and the local authority, Spelthorne Borough Council. Both hired top barristers to represent them in court. But Zane’s parents were denied legal aid and were only able to fight their case because they raised £70,000 in donations from the public. Back in February 2014, their Edwardian riverside home was one oof many in the Chertsey aarea ravaged by floods. The couple cleared water from their basement with five electric pumps and only hired a petrol pump as ‘back-up’ because they feared the storm might cause a power cut.
Apart from testing it for a few minutes, they say they didn’t need to use it. However, the coroner ruled that it was in fact switched on for six hours between 12.30pm and 6.30pm – based on notes made by a doctor who held a consultation with the couple two weeks after Zane died.
Zane’s parents insist the medic was mistaken and say they told him they had used their electric – not the petrol – pumps for six hours.
And they ask that if they had used it, why is it that a pet dog and hamster, who were downstairs all afternoon, were completely unharmed?
Zane’s lifeless body was found in bed by his distraught mother at 3.17am on February 8, 2014.
His father Kye was found by paramedics in cardiac arrest in the next room. He survived but has been left paralysed in a wheelchair.
Hospital medics informed Kye
‘We have been made out to be responsible for Zane’s death’
within hours of the tragedy that firefighters had detected hydrogen cyanide gas in their home, at levels which can be fatal in 15 minutes.
This was later confirmed at Zane’s inquest by fire officers. But the coroner would rule that a single reading for hydrogen cyanide was ‘insufficient’ and ruled carbon monoxide was to blame.
Zane did have carbon monoxide levels of eight per cent in his red blood cells. Enough, according to the coroner, to kill him. But experts strongly disagree.
‘The level of carbon monoxide found in Zane Gbangbola’s system is incredibly low compared with other deaths,’ said Stephanie Trotter, president of the Carbon Monoxide and Gas Safety Society.
She checked records of carbon monoxide deaths going back to 1995 and ‘couldn’t find a single case with a level that low’.
Professor Jim Bridges, an internationally respected toxicologist, told the inquest that 30 per cent or above usually causes death. But the coroner decided to rely on another medical expert hired by Spelthorne Borough Council, who claimed deaths can occur at just three per cent.
Experts told the inquest heavy flooding could have disturbed deadly gases from historic waste dumped at the landfill site decades ago.
An entry in Nicole’s medical notes from February 8, 2014 says: ‘[Health protection practitioner] called to advise we need to ensure patient does not return to her home.
‘Check hydrogen cyanide levels in blood as HPA [Health Protection Agency] identified small pockets of hydrogen cyanide at home.’
Remarkably, the coroner did not call a single witness from the Health Protection Agency (now known as Public Health England) to give evidence at the inquest. In his ruling, the coroner ultimately dismissed cyanide as a cause of Zane’s death because laboratory tests of his blood and liver tissue came back normal.
But the inquest heard the samples were not taken from Zane’s body until three days after his death – and were not tested until three months later. A report by Dr Norman Parker, a consultant haematologist and medical director, said cyanide leaves the body within hours of death.
Zane’s mother Nicole said: ‘We are devastated with the coroner’s verdict. We were expecting a full and fearless investigation. But instead what we got was a miscarriage of justice where any evidence of hydrogen cyanide was marginalised and anything that supported the petrol pump theory was magnified. We have been made out to be liars and responsible for killing Zane. Nothing could be further from the truth.’
A spokesman for Mr Travers said: ‘All relevant and available evidence was called and considered.’