Toddler’s body by mould that
Inquest rules he died from effects
ATODDLER who ‘was full of life and laughter’ died after prolonged exposure to damp and mould at his Rochdale home, a coroner has ruled.
Joanne Kearsley said the death of Awaab Ishak should be a ‘defining moment’ for the housing sector in how it deals with an issue affecting homes across the country.
Following six days of evidence at Rochdale Coroners Court, coroner Joanne Kearsley concluded that RBH - which owns and manages the Freehold estate where Awaab lived - should have carried out repairs on the property between July and December 2020 when it knew about the mould.
She also criticised the advice that was given to Awaab’s father, Faisal Abdullah, when he first complained about the problem in autumn 2017 to ‘paint over the mould’.
Ms Kearsley also ruled that medical advice given to Awaab’s family before the toddler’s death meant he received ‘sub-optimal’ care that could not prevent his cardiac arrest, but she did not feel the actions of RBH or Northern Care Alliance NHS Trust amounted to ‘neglect’.
She said: “I’m sure I am not alone in asking how does this happen?
“How in the UK in 2020 does a two-year-old child die from exposure to mould in his home?
“The evidence from this inquest quite clearly showed that this issue is not simply a Rochdale problem. Nor is damp and mould simply a social housing problem.”
The coroner added: “The tragic death of Awaab will and should be a defining moment for the housing sector in terms of increasing knowledge, increasing awareness and a deepening of understanding surrounding the issue of damp and mould.”
Ms Kearsley told the court that she had taken into account testimony from housing ombudsman Richard Blakeway, who found an ‘over-reliance being placed on the contribution of a tenant’s lifestyle as the cause’ of damp and mould.
She said: “Having considered all the evidence in this case I find that the most likely cause of any damp or moisture in 2020 was, more likely than not, due to normal daily living activities albeit there may have previously been other issues such as leaks from other properties.
“To be clear there is no evidence that the ways of living by the family were in any way excessive.
“Furthermore I find as a matter of fact that the ventilation in the bathroom was not effective, there was a lack of ventilation in the kitchen and an overall lack of an effective ventilation system in the property. This was a direct contributing factor in the development of the mould.”
Ms Kearsley gave a narrative conclusion for Awaab’s death, with a medical cause of acute airway oedema with severe granulomatous tracheobronchitis, due to environmental mould exposure.
She told the court: “Awaab Ishak died as a result of a severe respiratory condition caused due to prolonged exposure to mould in his home environment. Action to treat and prevent the mould was not taken. His severe respiratory condition led to Awaab going into respiratory arrest.
“The medical advice given to his parents led to Awaab receiving sub-optimal ventilation of his airway which was unable to prevent his cardiac arrest.”
Awaab had been struggling with cold-like symptoms and was unable to breathe through his nose in the weeks before his death, his inquest heard.
He lived in a one-bedroom flat on Rochdale’s Freehold estate, where his dad Faisal Abdullah began battling mould in autumn 2017.
The inquest heard evidence from witnesses involved in the case - from repair staff who inspected his home, to the medics who looked after him.
And it revealed a chain of poor decisions - a litany of ways in which Awaab and his family were failed.
They began before he was born and went right up to the hours before his death.
The first failure came more than a year before Awaab had even been born.
When Mr Abdullah first began to notice ‘black dots on the surface’ in his kitchen in autumn 2017, it was the first time he had ever come across the issue of mould.
He took a photo of it on his phone and showed it to reception at an office for Rochdale Boroughwide Housing (RBH), the social landlord which owns and manages properties on the Freehold estate.
The inquest heard that a man working in the office told Mr Abdullah he ‘would have to paint over it’ - but he never said to use specialist anti-mould paint, or gave any other advice.
Mr Abdullah followed the advice and repeated it a year later when the mould returned, covering a larger area of his flat than in 2017.
By this time, his wife Ms Amin was pregnant with Awaab, who would be born at Royal Oldham Hospital on December 13, 2018.
Nadhia Khan, RBH’S director of customer and community, told the inquest that tenants would now not be told to resolve mould issues themselves - with contractors carrying out the work instead.
Less than three days into Awaab’s inquest, RBH made the bombshell admission that the approach it took to dealing with complaints about the family’s home had been ‘inappropriate’, and that it ‘should have taken responsibility for the mould issues’.
Mr Abdullah made several complaints about mould at his home, along with repeated attempts to move home, during the course of Awaab’s life.
Damp and mould was already a major issue for hundreds of RBH tenants.
The housing association had 600 outstanding mould treatments to carry out when Mark Wrigley took over as disrepair manager in 2019 and he admitted that, for the painting team he oversaw, ‘eventually, the mould took over the painting.’
Mr Abdullah responded to a Facebook post about damp and mould, which led to a disrepair claim being filed against RBH by Anthony Hodari solicitors in June 2020.
As part of the process, Mr Wrigley inspected the family’s home on July 14, and he believed the problem was being caused by a ‘lifestyle’ issue, with other workers at RBH making similar comments in a later visit.
Cooking and bathing were believed to be adding to moisture in the property by RBH - including claims that ‘ritual bathing’ involving a ‘bucket’ was taking place, although the court heard workers never asked the family about this directly, while Mr Abdullah insisted it did not take place.
But surveys carried out before and after Awaab’s death found that the property had insufficient ventilation and coroner Joanne Kearsley insisted that cooking and showering would take place in ‘anybody’s home’.
Daniel Mcvey, building surveyor at Rochdale Council who inspected the property after Awaab’s death, found it to be ‘unfit for human habitation’ without repairs carried out.
Housing ombudsman Richard Blakeway told the court it can be ‘too simplistic’ for housing associations to blame tenants for damp and mould.
He said: “There may be factors like fuel poverty, age and design of homes, which may make the risk of damp and mould greater... those are known risks and therefore it’s important for them to think about their approach to make sure they address those known challenges.”
Ms Khan said RBH eventually fitted new ventilation in the bathroom and kitchen of the property following Awaab’s death, along with a number of other properties on Freehold.
Awaab’s inquest has heard how RBH staff used a number of different IT systems, but there is one programme called CRM which they should all be using. Yet this wasn’t always the case when issues were raised by Awaab’s family or when issues were raised on their behalf by health and social care professionals.
It meant that vital pieces of information were not always available to RBH staff who were dealing with the family with several workers even