A school academy trust was fined £300,000 after a 19-year-old student died as a result of a ‘series of management failures’.
Owen Garnett tragically died two days after choking on a paper towel at his school.
Owen was a sixth form student at a school for children with special educational needs and part of the Unity Multi Academy Trust (MAT). He had been a student at the school since he was 11 years old and had been diagnosed with Pica – a potentially life-threatening eating disorder where a person compulsively swallows non-food items.
On 9 January 2023, Owen was in the playground area with other students during a break from class, unsupervised, and found his way back into school. It took several minutes for his absence to be noticed and when he was discovered, around the side of the school building, he was choking. The emergency services were called, and although they retrieved a ball of paper towel from his throat, he had been without oxygen for too long and later died in hospital. Days before, there had been a similar incident, where Owen was seen in the playground by a teacher, again choking on blue towel, however during this incident Owen managed to clear his airway on his own. Despite this near miss the school failed to take action to make sure that it didn’t happen again.
The HSE investigation found that students at the school had individual risk assessments which detailed specific health and safety risks relating to them, and the control measures required to protect against that risk. The choking risk associated with Pica had been identified in Owen’s risk assessment and a ’named person’ was supposed to supervise him to make sure he did not eat anything which could cause him harm. However, the investigation revealed that none of the staff in Owen’s class team had received any specific training on the management of safety risks associated with Pica. The school had also failed to effectively investigate and respond to concerns raised by Owen’s family.
Unity MAT, c/o Woodlands School Packington Lane, Coleshill, Birmingham, pleaded guilty to breaching Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. They were fined £300,000 and ordered to pay £10,750 in costs at Coventry Magistrates Court on 18 December 2024.
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