School trip tragedy - prosecutors trying to overturn not guilty verdict of teachers

[Fairydustandsparklylights]

It was a horrendous tragedy where a beautiful child lost her life. Parents want the teachers to be found guilty as they want / need someone to blame to try and come to terms with what happened.

Looking after other people’s children is a huge responsibility and not a “freebie” holiday. As a teacher, I refuse to do trips and I have many problems at work because of it. Parents complain of a lack of residential trips. This accident now means that 3 teachers have been dragged through court and their personal lives (and their children’s lives) destroyed in the process.

link here https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13475399/amp/French-prosecutors-begin-fight-overturn-decision-clear-three-British-teachers-manslaughter-Jessica-Lawson-12-drowned-lake-school-trip.html

How can they be held responsible for a pontoon collapsing? Why do parents think that the teachers are having a jolly when supervising many teenagers abroad? If the child was with her parents when it happened, they wouldn’t have been prosecuted for manslaughter. Why are teachers different?

Aibu to say that school trips should be banned completely? This way parents can be the ones to take their children for different experiences. Many would miss out but this is the only way to ensure this doesn’t happen again.

Judging from the details on here it wasn't just a tragic accident though. If there has been prior issues then there were clear flags that things needed to improve.

The teachers may well not be to blame, but it sounds like the activity centre might be.

Accident investigations are so important to learn lessons to prevent future tragedies. Huge changes have been made to equipment, methodologies, laws and training as a result of parents pushing the answers

Accident investigations are so important to learn lessons to prevent future tragedies. Huge changes have been made to equipment, methodologies, laws and training as a result of parents pushing the answers

exactly this

I’m not saying you did… it was to back up my point that a risk assessment should be part of everyones everyday life.

The same thing is now likely to happen with the recent mudslide cae

I don’t like school trips involving water even water rides. Those teachers will have been living with this tragedy even day for the last 10 years nearly and it will live with them for the rest of their lives I expect.

This!

Those poor teachers should never have been prosecuted in the first instance never mind being put through it again.

Terribly sad for the girls family but unfair to blame the teachers.

“There were a total of 24 British pupils aged 12 to 17 in the water, along with one teacher, with two others monitoring from the shore.”

1:24 ratio is not great. Neither is 3:24 if they were all in the water.

Clearly there is an issue with the pontoon regularly flipping and we would need to know the ins and outs of why, what cautions were issued (if any) for its use and maximum capacity etc.

The lifeguard is perhaps inferring that more lifeguards should have been there (he refers to the size of the area he needs to watch). However the fact he remarks he’s seen it flip lots sounds like he’s trying to use it as an excuse.

I don’t see anywhere in this article that the family say that the teachers were just having a jolly nor do I see them saying that the teachers are to blame. They are asking for accountability for the death of their child through a due process - a due process which includes the teachers, but doesn’t target them.

Teachers are loco in parentis, as it appears you well know. The family have every right to establish if due care was taken of their child.

It is utterly tragic.

YANBU. I'm a languages teacher and have to run residential trips abroad. Although it's a great experience for the kids, it's exhausting, a huge amount of extra work, and frankly I find it unbelievably stressful. It makes me furious when people think it's a jolly for teachers. The level of responsibility is scary, especially when you hear horror stories like this one. Despite the hours you spend on the risk assessments, things can go wrong which are out of your control and which cannot be predicted. Even if you are blameless in a situation like this, it's still a hell of a thing to go through (though not compared with what the poor family is going through, obviously).

This sort of thing makes me never ever want to run a trip again-they are horrendously stressful.

The worst happened on a school trip here a few years ago. Total random accident involving 16 year old. The teacher had a breakdown and no school in the city has run a similar trip since. No question of any charges being brought the general feeling was utter sympathy for all concerned.

Exactly this.

I think relatives say things in pain and anger and want revenge, which is understandable when they are grieving, but the important thing is that this shouldn't influence the justice process.

I agree, the 24 pupils to 1 teacher in the water is, in my view, really poor. This, to me, definitely puts some, not all, onus on the teachers. I absolutely don’t see teachers as having a jolly. I think these trips are horribly stressful and there’s rarely enough staff support in ANY setting. I don’t blame the teachers but they absolutely hold some degree of responsibility.

Tragedies don't just happen abroad, see the recent mud slide and a couple of years ago didn't a girl die in a UK theme park on a school trip?

I've swum with kids abroad before. The ratio 1:24 in the water is not one we'd have ever done.
Yes, it was a tragic accident but in spite of that, only one teacher actually in the water with them all is a risk in itself, which should have been avoided.

I'm a languages teacher and I've had some very rude emails from parents berating me for no longer running trips. I ran a trip a few years ago and 3 children took ill and I found it extremely stressful. I don't like the responsibility, especially since having my own children. I won't run any further trips.

Maybe I can help here since I know a little bit about the French legal system, and I have been reading the local press reports, which have been written in a less sensational way than those in the Mail (quelle surprise). For example https://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/nouvelle-aquitaine/haute-vienne/limoges/noyade-d-une-fillette-britannique-a-liginiac-en-juillet-2015-le-proces-en-appel-de-cinq-personnes-2977553.html

In the French system, formally, the search is for the truth, as opposed to two opposing sides presenting the best possible view of the case. Of course, there are lawyers on both sides, but they are notionally committed to finding out the truth of what happened.

The first trial basically ended with shrugged shoulders. The court was unable to determine whether — and if so, to what extent — the death was the fault of the teachers, the lifeguard, or the people in charge of the equipment, so no blame was assigned.

The dead girl's parents appealed, demanding a new trial (to have another go at finding the truth) with different judges, and that's what's happening now. Again, the teachers are not the only ones being judged here; so are the lifeguard and the local town hall (collectively), who were responsible for the pontoon.

From what I've read I think it's unlikely that anything concrete will be established, and even less likely that the teachers will be held responsible (and even more unlikely that the teachers would be the only people held responsible). Even if they are, however, they will serve no jail time. The prosecution has suggested (from the start) that the appropriate punishment would be a suspended sentence. Still something you don't want on your record, but it would serve no great purpose to actually put them (or the lifeguard) in prison.

I think this is a tragedy on a couple of levels. Not just the death of the girl, but also the perhaps understandable inability of the parents to let it go, and the subsequent drama affecting the lives of multiple people. Nevertheless, it doesn't seem to me that there is anything unreasonable about what is happening, given that this is how things work in France. The parents are entitled to ask for this, and so it's happening. We can criticise them for that, but most of us haven't lost a child in tragic circumstances. Maybe they just want closure, and would be happy if the court decided that it was all the fault of the lifeguard, or the town hall when it had the pontoon built X years ago -- I haven't seen any evidence for the OP's comment that the parents specifically want the teachers to be found responsible.

Teachers get the blame for everything.

It’s irrelevant the teacher being in the water… in fact they’d have been better off supervising out of the water.

3-24 ratio is fine. As along as each supervisor knows who they are watching/is in their group.

I agree.
Obviously a tragedy for the family, and also for the teaching staff.

BUT

Those teachers will have been living with this tragedy even day for the last 10 years nearly and it will live with them for the rest of their lives I expect.

It was not their fault. Potentially the activity Centre might have had a case to answer in terms of procedures for the lifeguard reporting their concerns, but each of those teachers will be completely broken. It took YEARS for the case to finally acquit them. It is unbelievable that there is any possibility that they might have to go through it all again.

Sadly, accidents happen. Tragedies like this are very very rare, but totally ruin the lives of all involved, not just the family. Criminalising the people who volunteered to run the trip in the first place helps no-one.

I wasn’t saying it was the teachers’ fault. I’m sure they’re blaming themselves regardless.

No, it's not irrelevant. I am a teacher. Been in education three decades including multiple trips abroad and doing the risk assessments for the trips/itineraries.
You wouldn't have only one swimmer with 24 students in the water/only one lifeguard on the side.
Even with two colleagues as lookouts with whistles to call out for horseplay/splashing, it's not a good ratio for that particular activity.

3:24 is appalling. That’s watching 8 kids, and they obviously won’t be together all the time. If they can’t up the ratios (with lifeguards) then they should not have done the activity. My kidd are teenagers, but I still watch them in water. It takes seconds to drown

Put it this way - we had twenty kids with 4 teachers in with them - 1:5, and this was a pool not open swimming.

I think it's a fair point OP. There was a young girl who sadly drowned in a water park in Berkshire 2 years ago, for example. There wasn't any criminal investigation into it, just a H&S one by the council. If it had been teachers supervising a school trip rather than her family taking her, I can't see why it should be different.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-66646983#:~:text=An%2011%2Dyear%2Dold%20girl,and%20an%20investigation%20was%20launched.