Teacher charged over death of boy, 10, on trip

A teacher was charged yesterday with the manslaughter of a 10-year-old boy who drowned on a school outing.

Max Palmer was swept to his death in a swollen river at Glenridding in the Lake District in May. He had accompanied a group of pupils from Fleetwood High School in Lancashire on the trip because his mother, Patricia, 37, was a teaching assistant there. She almost died in her attempts to pull him from Red Tarn beck, near Ullswater.

Paul Ellis, the teacher supervising the trip, will appear at Eden magistrates' court in Penrith on Wednesday.

A spokesman for Cumbria police said: "Following the death of Max Palmer at Glenridding on 26 May, a joint investigation between Cumbria police and the Health and Safety Executive has been conducted. A 42-year-old man has been charged with an offence of manslaughter and an offence contrary to section 7 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974."

Max, a pupil at Shakespeare Primary School in Fleetwood, was swept off his feet and carried downstream. It had been raining heavily and a second child was treated for grazes. There were 14 pupils on the trip supervised by three adults.

The prosecution comes at a time of growing concern over school trips. In the past three years, at least 12 children have died, including Hannah Black and Rochelle Cauvet, both aged 14, who were swept to their deaths on a river walk in North Yorkshire last year.

One teachers' union, the National Association of Schoolmasters and Union of Women Teachers, is advising its members to boycott trips. It says the regulations governing them are now so complicated that teachers could easily lay themselves open to claims for compensation.But other teachers' unions say trips are a valuable educational experience.