Archie Battersbee died in prank gone wrong – coroner

BBC

Archie Battersbee died accidentally following a “prank or experiment” that went wrong, a coroner concluded.

Archie, 12, was found unconscious at the family home in Southend-on-Sea on 7 April.

He died four months later in August, following his parents’ legal battle with the NHS hospital treating him in London.

The coroner said there was no evidence he was doing an online challenge at the time, as his mother first believed.

Hollie Dance had asked Essex Police to look at her son Archie’s phone for any evidence he may have been taking part in a challenge.

No images or videos of Archie taking part in online challenges were found, a detective told the inquest.

Senior Coroner for Essex, Lincoln Brookes, said he could not “rule out the possibility” that was what happened and nor could police, but he said a decision had to be made based on the evidence.

His medical cause of death was recorded as an unsurvivable catastrophic hypoxic ischemic brain injury.

‘Stunts’

Mr Brookes said Archie “hadn’t intended to harm himself but had done so inadvertently during a prank or experiment that went wrong”.

He added that it “probably went wrong very quickly and very badly”.

He said he had considered a conclusion of suicide, but ruled this out.

While Archie had expressed periods of low mood in the preceding 12 months there was no evidence of it at the time of his death, the coroner said.

“He was full of energy, he was very physical, he was at times very bored,” said Mr Brookes.

“He liked to trick, he liked sometimes to carry out acts, or some might describe them as stunts, that would alarm people,” he said…