A DEVASTATED couple had a child taken away by
social workers as their 20-month-old son lay dying in hospital. Tyler Black, who
had fallen into the family pond 24 hours earlier, died the day after the other
youngster was removed.
Yesterday, a coroner ruled that the toddler's
death was an accident.
Now his parents, Caren and Adrian Black, are
pleading to be reunited with the child who they can see only twice a week.
The
tragedy happened in July. Moments before he fell into the pond, Tyler had woken
from a nap and was playing happily at the family home in Bicester, Oxfordshire.
When his 30-year-old mother realised he was
missing, she checked the garden as it was a hot day and the back door of the
house had been left open. There she found her son's lifeless body floating in
their 3ft deep koi carp pond. Giving evidence at the inquest, Mrs Black said: 'I
could not see him from the back door; I went straight to the pond.'
He was taken by ambulance to the John Radcliffe
Hospital in Oxford where doctors battled for two days to save him.
Detectives, who had been asked to investigate by
social workers, found no suspicious circumstances and yesterday a coroner ruled
that Tyler's death had been nothing more than an accident. Through tears, Mrs
Black said after the inquest into her son's death that she felt she had lost
more than one child when Tyler died.
'Social services marched in and the child was
taken away before our son died.
'There was not even any chance to say goodbye to
Tyler.' Mr Black, a 34-year-old mechanic, said he hoped the coroner's verdict
would force social services to reconsider.
'I've said all along that it was at lent. They
tried to say' there a risk of neglect but the children had anything they wanted.
‘And I’m going to make sure the authority knows I'm not going to back off.
Recording an accident verdict, Oxfordshire
coroner Nicholas Gardiner said: 'This was a tragic but not suspicious incident.'
Detective Sergeant Christopher Whitwell told the
inquest in Oxford that his investigation of the death had not found anything
suspicious. ‘The matter was brought to our attention by the child protection
team in Banbury,' he said. 'But it was an unexplained death and we would have
been involved as a matter of course.'
Emma Boulter, a neighbour, helped Mrs Black
attempt to resuscitate Tyler after she heard the distraught mother's screams in
the garden.
During the inquest, she said: 'I could see some
sort of green slime coming out of his mouth and there was some sort of yellow
mucus coming out of his eyes, which were shut.'
Seconds later, Mr Black came running up the
garden path after his wife had fetched him from a nearby pub.
He told the inquest through tears: 'I was only in
the pub not even a couple of minutes when Caren came in crying and screaming.
'She was very, very distressed. She was screaming Tyler, Tyler, Tyler. It just
did not enter into my mind that this could have happened.
'So I ran in through the back gate and through
the back door. Our neighbour was clutching hold of Tyler who, by this time was
quite grey, a bluey-purply colour.'
Both of Tyler's parents broke down as they gave
evidence to the inquest into the death of their son who they called a 'cheeky
little monkey'.
A spokesman for Oxfordshire social services
refused to comment.
b.clerkin@dailymail.co.uk
