Christmas Adjournment

I have heard about the problems with Essex county council. My hon. Friend makes a valid point. As he knows, my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich (Mr. Carswell) sat on the Education and Skills Committee during our inquiry into special educational needs. The second issue that I should like to raise is the tragic death of my constituent Tyson Brown, who lost his life in 2005 and whose family feel badly let down by the way in which the case has been handled by the police, the Health and Safety Executive and the coroner. The family believe that each of those organisations has made mistakes that have made it much more difficult for the evidence to be referred to the Crown Prosecution Service to enable the case to progress to court. The death of a son is never easy to cope with, yet my constituent's family's tragedy has been compounded by the fact that the individuals they believe responsible for their child's death have never stood trial. On 12 August 2005, Tyson Brown, a 16-year-old boy from Woodley, drowned during his lunch break. He was attempting to swim across a flooded quarry where he had been working after accepting a challenge to do so from his employer. That is right; an employer, at his place of work, bet his employee to swim across a dangerous flooded quarry, exposing a young man to considerable danger. The police attended the scene and quickly dismissed the death as a tragic accident. Health and safety officials said that as it took place at ““lunchtime””, it was not a matter for them. The police, based on a short telephone conversation with the Health and Safety Executive, seemed to have come to the conclusion that there was very little to investigate. I find that quite extraordinary. Indeed, a civil case—where, admittedly, the burden of evidence is lower—that the family brought against the employer resulted in a £10,000 compensation settlement, although that is not much for a young life. The family have been fighting to get at the truth for two years and have not been treated in the manner they should have been by the police, the HSE or the coroner's court. They have raised a number of concerns about the way the police investigated the case and they are dissatisfied with the responses they have received. Despite a number of letters sent to the police, I, too, have failed to receive completely satisfactory answers to questions, such as why the boss, Mr. Edwards, was allowed to leave the scene before being interviewed, why his statement was not recorded properly and on the correct witness statement forms, why he was not asked to attend the inquest as a witness, and why the police waited more than three hours before informing the family of the death of their son. That raises concerns about whether justice has been seen to be done in this case—whether the police have carried out a thorough investigation, whether the HSE made a rash and ill-informed decision about the nature of the incident, and whether the coroner was given all the information required before coming to a conclusion. I believe that it is reasonable to interpret that the duty of care an employer has for their employees is not set rigidly by the hours of work; rather, it should also be determined by the influence an employer exercises over their employee and by the environment in which it is exercised. It is reasonable to expect that an employer should be held accountable for their influence if it can be shown that risk to an employee's health and well-being directly resulted from that influence and would not have occurred otherwise. Considering this case in particular, it is therefore reasonable to expect that the influence Mr. Edwards exercised as a boss over Tyson Brown would have extended over the lunch-break period. It is also reasonable to expect that Tyson Brown, particularly considering his age, would respond to requests by his boss even at lunchtime in a way that he might not have done if Mr. Edwards had held no such superior position. Finally, it is reasonable for Mr. Edwards to foresee a risk to Tyson Brown by encouraging him to enter a flooded quarry without safety measures in place. It is not for the House to rule on the interpretation of the facts in this case. Equally, I do not believe that it is for the police to make such a judgment, but I do believe that we need an independent adjudication of the circumstances of this case. There is no doubt in my mind that mistakes have been made. I therefore do not believe that Tyson Brown has received justice. After two years, it is time for this matter to be properly settled and I hope that the Minister will use her good offices to help in that.