A four-year-old boy was tragically found lying face-down in a pond after he wandered from his family home, an inquest heard.
Ifan Wedros Owen-Jones was playing on the afternoon of August 7 last year in a caravan he lived in with his parents in a yard in the Blaenffos area of Pembrokeshire. Ifan and his siblings were playing outside and returned to the caravan in the afternoon where Ifan began playing with his iPad.
An inquest into his death, held at County Hall in Haverfordwest on Thursday, heard how Ifan's mother Sian fell asleep in the caravan. However, she could hear the children playing as the door was open due to warm weather at the time, Wales Online reports.
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Reading a report at the inquest PC James Lang-Ford of Dyfed-Powys Police said Ifan’s mother “was awoken and could hear Ifan playing outside”. He added: “She went to the toilet and came back and asked the other children where Ifan was. They searched the yard and the sheds but they could not find him.”
A pond some distance from the caravan was described as not massive but bigger than one you would have in your garden”. But, Ifan “never tried to access the area where the pond was located”.
His mother drove around the land to look for Ifan until his uncle, Matthew Owen, discovered him face-down in the pond. Ifan was unresponsive, and the Welsh Ambulance Service was called.
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Despite the best efforts of family and paramedics Ifan was declared dead at 6.40pm. The acting senior coroner for Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire, Paul Bennett, referenced a post-mortem examination carried out in the wake of Ifan’s death which revealed the cause of death as drowning. He added that there was “nothing to suggest foul play or third-party involvement”.
The inquest also heard that Ifan was awaiting tests due to a suspected autism spectrum disorder. Mr Bennett said he considered such a condition to be a significant contributory factor” and an “indirect cause” in the boy’s death.
“This is undoubtedly one of those extremely distressing situations where a young child has died,” he added. “To what extent Ifan’s autism spectrum disorder played a part is difficult for me to determine. It could be said that a young child of Ifan’s age would not deliberately put himself in that position.”
Mr Bennett recorded a conclusion of accidental death and expressed his deepest sympathies to Ifan’s family.
