Leeds city council has said it plans to prosecute the David Lloyd Leisure group after a three-year-old boy drowned in one of the company’s swimming pools in 2018.
On Monday, an inquest jury in Wakefield returned a conclusion of accident after a four-day hearing into Rocco Wright’s death at the David Lloyd health club in Moortown.
The jury heard how the child died after he was pulled from the water by his father at the leisure centre on 21 April 2018.
After the inquest, Leeds city council said it believed the firm had breached health and safety laws and it intended to prosecute “in the near future”.
A spokesperson said: “The death of a child in any circumstances is tragic, and we continue to offer the Wright family our sincerest sympathy. We will keep in regular contact with the family and ensure they are informed and supported throughout this next stage.”
The inquest had previously heard how Rocco’s father, Steven Wright, had pulled the boy from the water after he had got into difficulties. He described how his panic grew as he searched for Rocco before he spotted him at the bottom of the main pool.
He said his son had never got into the pool by himself and the inquest heard there were no witnesses or CCTV evidence that could explain how he ended up in the water.
The jury found that the child had probably been under the 1.2-metre (4ft) deep water for more than two minutes.
It was also told that at the time of the drowning there had only been one 17-year-old lifeguard on duty and that David Lloyd operated a policy that the maximum number of people in a pool that could be supervised by a single lifeguard was 50 people.
David Lloyd’s operations director, Stephen Brown, said this was a “ceiling” figure and denied the company had a policy of employing young lifeguards because they were cheaper and said lifeguard staffing levels were for local managers to decide.
David Lloyd issued a statement saying that health and safety “is and always will be our number one priority.” It said: “The week-long inquest which concluded today, found a verdict of Accidental Death and we are unaware on what basis Leeds City Council intend to prosecute. It would be inappropriate for us to comment any further on the matter at this stage.”
Saying that the evidence given by the company at the inquest showed there had been no cuts to lifeguarding budgets, the statement added: “On the contrary lifeguarding had in fact received increased investment.”
