Teacher's neglect led to girl's death on boat trip

An inquest jury decided yesterday that a teacher contributed to the death of a nine-year-old girl who drowned while on a school boating trip.

Elizabeth Bee was trapped under an upturned boat. She and eight other children had been thrown into the water when the boat capsized in poor weather on a school trip to Portsmouth in September 1999. The inquest was told that the teacher, Paul Dove, 65, failed to pay basic attention to the child during the trip to the Royal Navy Sailing Centre at Whale Island.

Mr Dove, a science teacher at the independent Boundary Oak School in Fareham, Hampshire, was said to have failed to do a head count after the accident, and only became aware the girl was missing when her sister called out her name and received no reply.

After the inquest, at which the jury returned a verdict of "accidental death contributed to by neglect", the girl's mother, Lesley Bee, 44, said: "I can now draw a line underneath it all. Elizabeth has not lost her life in vain."