CORFU – A grieving father broke down in tears yesterday as he told a Greek court of the moments leading up to the deaths of his children from carbon monoxide poisoning in their holiday apartment.
Christianne Shepherd (7) and her brother, Robert (6), from Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England, died after a faulty boiler leaked gas into their Corfu bungalow in October 2006. They were on holiday with their father, Neil, and his partner, Ruth Beatson, who were both left in a coma as a result of the accident but survived.
Two Thomas Cook employees, Nicola Gibson and Richard Carson, yesterday went on trial in Corfu town charged with manslaughter by negligence and bodily harm by negligence. Giving evidence at the trial, Mr Shepherd described the hours leading up to the tragedy.
He told the court he and his son had a race as the family went for breakfast that morning and that Robert tripped up and later said he felt dizzy. But Mr Shepherd said his son “brightened up” as the day went on and his daughter showed no signs of illness until later that evening.
He said: “About 10 minutes after we had gone to bed, Christi sat up and started being sick.
“I immediately got up and went over to her to help. When I sat up, I felt dizzy but my concern was for my daughter.”
Mr Shepherd broke down in tears and struggled to tell the court how he went to get a carrier bag for his daughter to vomit into, before vomiting himself and remembering nothing until he woke up in hospital days later.
He said he had since learnt that the cause of the children’s deaths was a leak from a faulty boiler located outside the bungalow.
He said: “We know that there was a hole from out of the boiler into the room and we know that the carbon monoxide built up and built up and poured through the hole.”
Mr Carson (28) and Ms Gibson (26) sat at the front of the court with nine other defendants, all Greek, who are also charged over the deaths of the children.
Giving evidence, Ms Beatson said she did not remember anything other than going to lie with Robert when Christianne was vomiting – and then waking up in hospital.
She was asked if she thought Thomas Cook was obliged to carry out safety checks on every boiler in every bungalow. She answered: “I think Thomas Cook have a duty to make sure that their customers are going somewhere safe.”