Nursery worker and owner appear in court in connection with child’s death
A court heard 14-month-old Noah Sibanda died after an alleged failure to ensure children in a baby room were put down to sleep in a safe way.
A nursery worker and a business owner have appeared before magistrates charged in connection with the death of a 14-month-old boy.
Nursery worker Kimberley Cookson and business owner Deborah Latewood both saw the case against them transferred to Wolverhampton Crown Court after a seven-minute hearing at Dudley Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday.
Cookson, aged 22, did not enter a formal plea to the gross negligence manslaughter of Noah Sibanda, who died after an incident at Dudley’s Fairytales Day Nursery on December 9 2022.
The firm which ran the now-closed nursery, based in Bourne Street, has also been charged with one count of corporate manslaughter, including an alleged failure to ensure that children in the baby room were put down to sleep in a safe way.
Both Latewood, aged 54, and the company also face a charge of failing to comply with a duty under the Health and Safety at Work Act to ensure that Noah and others were not exposed to risk between November 29 and December 9 2022.
The corporate manslaughter charge alleges that Noah was unlawfully killed in that the nursery failed to take reasonable care by “failing to ensure that children in the baby room would be put down to sleep in a safe way” and also failed to ensure staff doing so were adequately trained and supervised.
The charge also alleges that the “breach of duty fell far below what could have been reasonably be expected in the circumstances” and “was a substantial cause of the death of Noah”.
The court heard formal pleas could not be entered to either manslaughter or corporate manslaughter at the magistrates’ court, with the offences only triable on a Crown Court indictment.
Latewood made no indication of plea on behalf of herself of the company.
Magistrates granted unconditional bail to the defendants, who are both from Dudley, and ordered them to appear at Wolverhampton Crown Court on June 10.
