Inquest probes role of air pollution in girl’s death
The mother of a nine-year-old girl who died from acute respiratory failure after repeated asthma attacks yesterday said she hoped a coroner’s inquest would conclude that air pollution played a role in her death.
Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah died in February 2013 after nearly three years of repeated attacks, which saw her taken to hospital 30 times.
But a specialist in 2018 noticed a “striking link” between levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and harmful particulate matter at the times she was admitted for treatment.
A ruling that air pollution was a factor in her death would be a legal fi rst in Britain.
“I hope, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed, that the coroner, after hearing all the evidence, will come to the conclusion that air pollution either caused or contributed to her death, and that’s all I’m asking for,” Ella’s mother Rosamund said.
“I will finally have the reason why she passed away,” she said.
“All children have a right to breathe cleaner air and I’ll keep on saying that because children shouldn’t die from asthma.”
The first coroner’s inquest in 2014 determined that Ella died of acute respiratory failure brought on by severe asthma.
But the ruling was set aside after the specialist’s report.
The second hearing, which is due to last 10 days from yesterday, will examine the levels of pollution the young girl was exposed to.
The family lived less than 30m from the South Circular, a busy and regularly congested arterial road, in Lewisham, southeast London.
Coroner’s inquests are held in England and Wales in the event of a sudden or unexplained death.
They establish the causes and circumstances of deaths on the balance of probability. They do not determine criminal or civil liability, guilt or blame, but set out facts in the public interest.
The lawyer representing the family, Jocelyn Cockburn, said reaching the second inquest was a “significant achievement”.
Since her daughter’s death, Rosamund Addo-Kissi-Debrah has campaigned for improvements to air quality and awareness of asthma.
She said the pollution near the family home was “definitely not visible”, but the government needed to clean up the air. –