Corfu deaths were ‘unlawful killings’
The coroner at the inquest into the brother and sister who died from carbon monoxide poisoning on a Thomas Cook holiday in Corfu has told jurors to return a verdict of unlawful killing.
Coroner David Hinchliff said unlawful killing could be the only verdict, saying the inquest has been a ‘complex, difficult and sometimes harrowing exercise’.
"But you have to make your determination based on the evidence that you’ve heard and not on any feelings of sympathy and empathy with the family," he told the jurors.
The jury has been sent home overnight to make its decision.
The two-week inquest in Wakefield had heard that Bobby and Christi Shepherd, aged six and seven, were staying with their father and step-mother at the Louis Corcyra Beach Hotel in October 2006.
The couple were also overcome with fumes but survived.
The jury had heard how the family had all felt unwell the night before the tragedy. The adults had gone into the children’s bedroom to help them but do not remember anything else until they woke up in hospital.
A couple who had stayed in the bungalow before the Shepherds had also become ill. They were taken to hospital but not diagnosed at the time with carbon monoxide poisoning.
The deadly fumes were from a faulty hot water boiler housed in an outbuilding at the hotel complex.
It had been badly maintained and had a number of faults.
Crucially, holes had been left in the walls between the outbuilding and the bedroom when air conditioning pipes had been installed.
During the inquest, several Thomas Cook employees, including the group’s current and former chief executives, had gone into the witness box and exercised their legal right not to answer questions.
Current chief Peter Fankhauser said he was sorry ‘thoroughly, from the deepest of my heart’, but when pressed by lawyers for the victims’ family, he said he did not need to apologise because ‘there was no wrongdoing by Thomas Cook’.
He insisted the hotel had lied to Thomas Cook, claiming there were no gas water heaters at the complex.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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