Inquests to be heard into deaths of four boys pulled from icy lake
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Inquests into the deaths of four boys who died after falling through the ice on a frozen lake will be held on Friday.
Brothers Samuel Butler, six, and eight-year-old Finlay Butler, died along with their cousin Thomas Stewart, 11, and Jack Johnson, 10, on December 11 2022 after being rescued from Babbs Mill Lake, in Kingshurst, Solihull, near Birmingham, and taken to hospital.
The inquests, which will not feature a jury, will be heard at Birmingham and Solihull Coroner’s Court in Birmingham on Friday and are expected to last all day.
Jack and Thomas both died at Birmingham Heartlands Hospital on December 11, while Finlay and Samuel both died at Birmingham Children’s Hospital on December 12 and December 14 respectively.
An initial inquest hearing, held in Birmingham on December 19 2022, was told that three of the boys were rescued after 22 minutes in the water, while the fourth was pulled from the lake after 31 minutes.
West Midlands Police had been called by members of the public who reported four children who had been playing on the frozen lake had fallen through the ice and into the water.
West Midlands Fire Service and West Midlands Ambulance Service attended the scene along with police.
The children’s deaths prompted an outpouring of tributes from the community, with hundreds of tributes, cards, flowers, teddy bears, balloons and sweets left at a makeshift shrine in their memory in the days after the incident.
