Teacher Charged with Manslaughter after School Trip Death

A teacher has been charged with manslaughter in connection with the death of a 10-year-old boy, who drowned on a school trip to the Lake District.

In May 2002, Lancashire schoolboy Max Palmer was swept downstream in a river close to Glenridding. The youngster was with a party of pupils from Fleetwood High School, Lancashire, where his mother Tricia, who was also on the trip, worked as an educational support assistant.

Paul Douglas Ellis, 42, a teacher at Fleetwood High School, is charged with manslaughter and breaches of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

In a second case, a teacher who led a school boating trip in which a nine-year-old girl drowned has been fined £2,000 by a Portsmouth court. Science teacher Paul Dove, 66, had pleaded guilty to failing to take adequate precautions to protect the health and safety of children in his care. The nine-year-old, Elizabeth Bee, was a pupil at Boundary Oak School, Fareham, when the motorboat carrying nine children from the school capsized in Portsmouth Harbour in September 1999. The school was also fined £20,000 for failing to ensure the safety of its pupils and £5,000 for failing to ensure the safety of staff.
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