A full inquest into Zane Gbangbola’s death will take place in January
A forthcoming inquest into the death of seven-year-old floods victim Zane Gbangbola – son of Kye Gbangbola FCIOB – is to examine the theory that he died from hydrogen cyanide poisoning due to contaminated flood water.
The four-week inquest is scheduled for January 2016 and will take evidence from a range of organisations including the local authority, Spelthorne Borough Council, and the Environment Agency.
Zane died and Kye Gbangbola was left paraplegic following the night of 8-9 February 2014, during a period of severe flooding, when floodwater was present in the basement of the family’s Thames-side home in Chertsey, Surrey.
Kye Gbangbola’s medical diagnosis is paraplegia due to hydrogen cyanide poisoning, and Zane was asleep just metres from him on the night of the accident.
The family believe that the gas was present because floodwater that entered the flood-basement of their Victorian-built home had passed through a former landfill site directly next to the property.
Also, the gas was found to be present in the house by fire brigade experts immediately after the accident, and later detected in the blood of Zane, his father and his mother Nicole Lawler.
Zane Gbangbola
However, environmental searches carried out when the Gbangbolas bought the house in 2004 – and based on information provided by the Environment Agency and held by Spelthorne Borough Council – certified that the adjacent land was clean and was not identified as landfill.
Initial post-mortem tests on Zane were inconclusive, and in June 2014 a police-appointed pathologist concluded that carbon-monoxide poisoning was the most likely explanation for Zane’s death.
But at the pre-inquest hearing at Woking Coroner’s Court on 3 July, senior Surrey coroner Richard Travers heard evidence from legal teams acting for the Gbangbola family and also for Spelthorne Borough Council.
The hearing was given evidence that the levels of carbon monoxide in Zane’s blood stood at just 8%, a level that would not have caused death.
The family’s barrister, Leslie Thomas QC, also told the hearing that no carbon monoxide had been detected at the property, and that St Peter’s Hospital had failed to conduct tests on Zane for hydrogen cyanide poisoning within the correct timeframe.
Coroner Richard Travers said that carbon monoxide poisoning was no more than a “theory”, and that the full inquest would fully explore the hydrogen cyanide scenario.
The hearing was also told about a lock-keeper’s hut built by the Environment Agency in 2010 on the former landfill site, now landscaped and known as Abbeyfields.
The hut, just metres from the Gbangbolas’ home, was protected with a gas-proof membrane following a report from Peter Brett Associates that referenced the possibility of migrating landfill gases.
Further pre-inquest hearings are scheduled for October and December, where the scope of the case and the parties attending and submitting evidence will be decided on.
The family has set up a petition calling for a full inquiry into Zane’s death.
