Council failings led to schoolboy's potholing death, court told

Education staff who took pupils into a "dark, freezing and muddy" underground passage where one then drowned, failed to check on a nearby, overflowing reservoir, a court heard today. Conditions were so wild on the huge expanse of water at Scar House in the Yorkshire Dales that a passerby took film on his mobile phone of waves cascading over the dam wall. The "spectacular scenes" were only a short drive from Manchester Hole cave where 14-year-old Joe Lister was caught by water sweeping through a hands-and-knees underground crawl. "It would have been a simple matter to make a check," said Tim Horlock QC, opening the Health and Safety Executive's prosecution of North Yorkshire county council at Leeds crown court. "Conditions could have been seen without getting out of the group's minibus." The council denies two charges under the 1974 Health and Safety Act of failing to protect the party from Tadcaster grammar school, and staff from Bewerley outdoor education centre in Pately Bridge, which North Yorkshire also runs. Ten pupils and three staff left the centre to explore the pothole in November 2005. The jury was told Lister got into difficulties as water rose in the Crawl, a narrow passage underground. Horlock described how some students in the group became "hysterical" as they made their way back to the surface through the 12-metre squeeze, which is mostly less than a metre high. The boy's father and mother listened from the public gallery as Horlock said panic and confusion had taken hold. Their son was last heard saying "I can't do it" before turning back down the cave. His body was later found with his head-torch on, but his wellington boots removed by the force of the flood water. Horlock said "complacency and lack of rigour" had meant the council had ignored numerous precautions that would have been outlined during the trial by experienced cavers and a Scout leader. Checking on Scar House, whose outflow permeates the pothole-ridden limestone swiftly and suddenly, was the most important. "In this case we say the risk assessment for Manchester Hole was inadequate," he told the jury. "This was especially so with a group of 11 children aged about 14 with a volunteer instructor who was aged 17 and a maths teacher who had never been down Manchester Hole. "The children themselves were complete novices. The prosecution submits that the evidence of confusion and the panic at the Crawl demonstrate the risk to health and safety." The jury will visit Manchester Hole today before returning to court, where the hearing is expected to last six weeks.