Weybridge school pupil Zane Gbangbola died an accidental death due to carbon monoxide poisoning, a coroner has ruled.

Surrey Comet:

Surrey coroner Richard Travers delivered his conclusion today at Woking Coroner’s Court following a six-week inquest in June and July this year, which heard evidence from multiple parties including Spelthorne Council and the Environment Agency.

His mother Nicole Lawler recounted during the inquest that she had found her sleeping son, a pupil at St George’s Junior School in Weybridge, unresponsive in a spare bedroom in the family home in Thamesmead, Chertsey, in the early hours of February 8.

The family, including Zane’s father Kye, were rushed to St Peter’s Hospital but their son could not be saved.

Zane's parents had maintained that he was killed by hydrogen cyanide gas that leaked from a former landfill site behind their home.

But low levels of carbon monoxide were found in Zane's blood, and a post-mortem examination concluded this was the cause of his death.

The family had bought a number of electric pumps to remove floodwater from their home and later rented a petrol-powered one as back-up.

Surrey Comet:

Today, Mr Travers identified the petrol-powered pump as the source of the gas that killed Zane.

Ruling Zane’s death an accident, Mr Travers said: “Zane Gbangbola died during the evening of the 7th February 2014 at his home address at Thameside, Chertsey in Surrey, as a result of inhaling toxic carbon monoxide fumes that had been generated by a petrol pump that had been used inside the house earlier that same day in order to pump flood water from the property’s flood basement.”

In his findings, Mr Travers ruled out the cause of hydrogen cyanide poisoning, despite an amber alarm sounding for the toxic gas on a sweep of the home just hours after the family were hospitalised.

He instead said the alarm, on the balance of probabilities, was triggered by the “presence of the oxides of nitrogen, probably from a fire appliance outside the property”.

Although he said Zane’s parents had been “reliable and accurate” during the inquest, he also criticised them for giving inaccurate information regarding the time until which the petrol pump had been running.

Originally, the pair had told the coroner in submitted written evidence, and to a doctor, that the pump had ran for about six hours until 6.30pm.

They had maintained that the pump only ran until 2.30pm, and that the mention of 6.30pm had been a “typo” during oral evidence, but this was dismissed by Mr Travers, who said that the pump had remained with the switch in the ‘on’ position and had probably run out of petrol rather than been shut off manually.

Reading a statement outside court today after the conclusion, Zane’s mother, Ms Lawler, said: “Zane’s inquest was deficient, legally and evidentially. The inquest satisfied neither our nor the public interest.

“As a consequence, we request an independent panel of inquiry, the precedent being the Hillsborough independent panel to review all documentation for all interested parties, specifically witnesses that were not called to this inquest and to make recommendations accordingly.

“Only when all of the evidence available can be assessed by a panel, the collective expertise to provide a thorough and open examination to all of the available material and to make informed recommendations that we consider the state has acted in the best interests and therefore in the public interests. We expect to be consulted on the members of such a panel.”

Miss Lawler struggled to hold back tears as she added: “We would like to take this opportunity to thank all members of the public who have supported us in our quest for justice for Zane.

“At the top of this was a deeply loved boy, a very special little boy. The world is a much poorer place without Zane.”

Mr Travers delivered his conclusion shortly after 1pm today.