Boy, 3, drowned in condo pool while unsupervised; coroner’s court finds nanny ‘not forthcoming’
The nanny claimed that she had paid full attention to the boy and lost sight of him when she turned to put down a water bottle, but her account was contradicted by CCTV footage.
The boy drowned in a pool at an unnamed condominium. (File photo: iStock)
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SINGAPORE: A three-year-old boy who was at the playground of his condominium with his nanny rode off on his kick-scooter and fell into a pool, where he drowned.
While the nanny initially “insisted” that she had paid full attention to him and lost sight of him only while turning to place a water bottle on a bench, her account was contradicted by closed-circuit television footage and her subsequent admission.
In her findings on Thursday (Jun 11), Coroner Brenda Chua returned a verdict of death by accidental drowning and emphasised the importance of close supervision of young children.
This is especially when they are playing near swimming pools, she said.
THE CASE
The identities of the boy, his parents and the name of the condominium are protected by a gag order. The name of the nanny was not revealed in open court.
The court heard that the 60-year-old nanny had looked after the boy since he was eight months old and had a “very good” relationship with him.
The boy called her “nai nai”, meaning grandmother.
He lived in a condominium unit with his parents, who employed the nanny to care for him.
On Mar 5, 2025, the boy went downstairs to the playground with his nanny, as was his routine after dinner. He brought along his kick-scooter, which he had used for one to two years.
The nanny claimed that she did not bring her phone to the playground that day as she wanted to pay “full attention” to the boy, and that she had not talked to anyone else.
She said she lost sight of him after she turned around to place a water bottle on a bench at the playground.
The boy sped towards the main pool and tried to turn left. However, he was too close to the edge of the pool, which had a downward-sloping edge, and fell into the water with his scooter.
There was no physical barrier around the 1.2m-deep main pool. The boy was 1m tall.
At 6.15pm, a resident spotted the boy and his scooter in the pool from her unit and called the police.
When officers arrived about 10 minutes later, the boy had been rescued from the pool. Paramedics attempted to resuscitate him but to no avail.
He was taken to hospital and declared dead that same evening. An autopsy found the cause of death to be drowning.
THE NANNY’S ACCOUNT
The coroner noted that the nanny was “not forthcoming” in her responses during the inquiry and instead adopted an approach of “deflection”.
She was questioned about her claim that she had turned around to place the water bottle on the bench, as closed-circuit television footage from the scene did not show her doing so.
She later agreed that the footage did not capture her turning to place anything on the bench before sitting down.
When asked to explain the time lapse between the boy riding away from the playground and her locating him at the main pool, the woman said she had been looking for him and had walked around the entire swimming pool.
She insisted that she had been paying full attention to the boy.
However, when questioned about how she became aware that the boy had ridden away from the playground, the woman was unable to give a satisfactory explanation, said the coroner.
She said: “I was maintaining my vision on him, and then he was found missing.”
The nanny also claimed that she was the one who noticed the boy in the pool, saying twice that “no one told me”.
However, police investigations revealed that it was a female passerby who spotted the boy in the water and a male passerby who alerted the nanny about his whereabouts.
This was supported by CCTV footage.
The nanny eventually acknowledged that her attention had not been on the boy the entire time.
When questioned by the court, she agreed that she did not stand up immediately to look for the boy.
Asked what she had been doing in the crucial 46 seconds before getting up to look for the boy, the nanny said: “I was sitting down there waiting for him to return, then I couldn’t find him.”
When asked to explain what she meant by paying full attention, the nanny said this meant: “I looked at him, then the speed of (the) scooter (was) so fast, then (I) couldn’t see him.”
She said the boy’s father “always told her” to follow the boy.
“From the footage it was patently clear that the nanny did not follow the deceased when he rode away from the playground,” said Ms Chua.
She noted that the nanny had jumped into the pool to retrieve the boy when she saw him there, even though she could not swim.
Ms Chua said the critical timeframe on that day was the 46-second period between the boy riding away on the scooter and the nanny standing up to begin looking for him.
During this period, the boy entered the pool with his scooter, she said.
“It is unfortunate that the deceased was alone and unsupervised when the incident occurred,” the coroner said, adding that there were also no passers-by in the vicinity during that period.
She urged close supervision of young children playing around swimming pools so that such incidents can be prevented.
Source: CNA/ll
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