Boy, 15, falls through ice and dies

A teenage boy died yesterday after falling through ice on a pond. Peter Sinclair, 15, of Stevenston, Ayrshire, and his next-door-neighbour, John Wales, 13, had been trying to retrieve golf balls at Auchenharvie golf course when Peter ventured out on to the ice and fell through.

Six pensioners who were golfing shouted at him to try and swim to an island but as he tried to clamber back on the ice, he slipped back in and disappeared.

Firefighters were swiftly on the scene and one who went to save the boy said he probably slipped to his death less than a minute before they arrived. Charles Bell, dressed only in standard firefighting kit, waded up to his neck but failed to find him. His body was retrieved later