We were set to reveal the joyful news I was pregnant, but hours later my partner was gassed to death
Girlfriend speaks out after tragedy at Royal aide’s cottage
THE girlfriend of a student poisoned at a holiday home owned by one of the Queen’s aides has disclosed that she desperately tried to resuscitate him before he died.
Thomas Hill was overcome by carbon monoxide while visiting a Highland cottage owned by the Earl and Countess of Dalhousie and their son, Lord Ramsay.
Charlotte Beard, now 24, recalled that they had spent a day walking through the glens and were set to break the happy news to her parents that they were expecting a daughter.
But only hours later, Thomas, 18, was found slumped unconscious in the bathroom, next to a faulty heater, and died in the ambulance while being taken to hospital.
Now Ms Beard has demanded that lessons be learned from the ‘tragic and avoidable death’, telling The Scottish Mail on Sunday: ‘Tom and I were looking to the future and we were ready to be a family,
‘I dropped to my knees and I cried and I cried’
and adults in an adult world. That’s been taken away.’
Mr Hill, from Stoney Cross in Hampshire, had joined his childhood sweetheart and her family at Glenmark Cottage, in the Cairngorms National Park near Brechin, Angus, in October 2015.
Ms Beard said the pair were excited about her pregnancy and, amid overwhelming happiness, had spent the afternoon watching a wild salmon swim upstream.
She said: ‘There’s nobody else for miles, there’s no phone signal, the outside world doesn’t exist. We were in our own little bubble. All we needed was each other.’
But they could have had no idea of what was about to befall them.
After returning to the cottage, Mr Hill, who had just started a course in fisheries management at Stirling University, went to have a bath and locked the door behind him.
After an hour, the worried family forced it open, finding Mr Hill struggling to breathe next to a whirring gas heater.
Using CPR training she had learned at Scouts, Ms Beard tried to revive her boyfriend.
She said: ‘Adrenalin is a wonderful thing. It gets you through the moment because you don’t have a choice. You either break down or you put your absolute everything into it. So that’s how I had to handle it. But it was incredibly difficult. I don’t think that it is something that will ever leave me.’
Eventually, an ambulance arrived to take Mr Hill to Ninewells Hospital in Dundee but the ‘pure, innocent, nature-loving’ young man was pronounced dead en route.
Ms Beard added: ‘It was like the rest of the world didn’t exist. I remember dropping to my knees. It was dark and wet and I looked up at the sky and I cried and I cried.
‘At that moment, my whole world had died with him and I couldn’t see how I could possibly continue. The only thing I wanted was to be with him, and I couldn’t.’
A month later, at just over 19 weeks, Ms Beard suffered a miscarriage, losing ‘the last piece of him’.
Earlier this month Burghill Farms, a company owned by Lord Dalhousie and his son, admitted it had failed to properly maintain the heating system in the cottage for more than seven years.
Piers Le Cheminant, who sublet the property close to the Dalhousie family’s 16-bed pile, Brechin Castle, also admitted the same failings.
Both now face fines or even imprisonment when they are sentenced on Thursday.
Dundee Sheriff Court heard that days before Mr Hill’s death, concerns had been raised about the cottage heating system by other holidaymakers.
A fatal accident inquiry into Mr Hill’s death is still to take place.
Ms Beard, who is now with a new partner and is expecting a son in December, hopes her six-year battle for justice will renew pressure on companies to ensure the safety of their buildings.
She said: ‘Carbon monoxide is odourless, so you can’t tell that it’s there. It’s important for business owners to be aware of the risks.
‘The main thing is to ensure that Tom’s legacy is preserved and that other people are protected.’