Of you had seen the headlines earlier in the day on the internet and heard them on the radio you could have believed that "PCSO's watch boy drown" or "Boy drowns as PCSO's keep out of the water", or many other rather scurrilous headlines.
As the day has moved on though we have heard rather more of this story and I have a real concern that the news headlines do not fit the story at all.
In point of fact, the PCSO's arrived at the lake, a lake known locally by many other names, and upon their arrival they were not even sure they were at the correct place. By the time they had arrived, the boy was sadly already dead. that was the view of the coroner. He was also not within sight and could not even be seen by the two fishermen who had waded in to the lake.
One of the PCSO's then ran to the road to direct specialist units (fire, ambulance and police) whilst the other continued to scan the river.
To suggest that the stood and watched the boy drown is utterly unfair. Whilst this has been a tragedy for one family, some people were already asking on Radio Five Live earlier as to why they were attacking the PCSO's who were quick to respond rather than asking themselves why they let an 8 and 10 year old play unsupervised by a dangerously deep lake.
2 comments:
And sadly the Manchester Police Federation has called on the governmetn to scrap PCSOs!
Funny, I don't remember anyone calling for the publication of the names of the police officers who shot a man in the head at close range on a tube train...
I agree, of course the story wouldn't of seemed so exciting if it was just about how efforts to save a boy failed.
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