Scout leaders accept responsibility for teen's Great Orme death

Scout leaders have told an inquest they accept responsibility for the death of a teenager who fell during a hike.

Ben Leonard, 16, from Stockport, Greater Manchester, slipped 200ft (61m) from the Great Orme in Llandudno, Conwy, on an Explorer Scouts trip in August 2018.

Lawyers for the Scout Association told an inquest in Manchester they accepted they were at fault.

James Ageros KC apologised to Ben's mother, Jackie Leonard, for his death.

But Ms Leonard tearfully told the inquest the apology had come five-and-a-half years too late.

"That was all we ever wanted from the beginning," she said.

She called the treatment of her family "disgusting" explaining how the Scout Association tried to portray her son as a "wild child".

Asked how she felt Ben and her family had been treated, she said: "Disgusting. Like we didn't matter and like Ben didn't matter."

Ben, who had received his GCSE results days before, was on a summer camp with Reddish Explorer Scouts from Stockport when he died.

The plan for the two-day trip had been to hike up Yr Wyddfa, also known as Snowdon, but that walk was scrapped due to a forecast for heavy rain and high winds.

Instead, on the second day of the trip, the group were taken to walk up the Great Orme.

They began their ascent, the jury was told, with no risk assessments done in advance or on the day.

Coroner David Pojur said Ben, who had joined Beavers at the age of five, and two friends fell behind while walking and took their own route up the hillside.

Mr Pojur said two of the scouts were sitting together while Ben explored steep ground on his own.

"They were concerned about it and tried to persuade Ben to join them," said Mr Pojur.

But Ben said he thought he had found a route down - only to be seen slipping on a narrow cliff ledge.

A walker said he saw the scout fall onto a steep slope and then on to the road.

He died at the scene from serious head injuries.

Mr Pojur issued a prevention of future deaths report in 2020, saying none of the scout leaders on the trip knew where Ben was when he fell and died.

The Scout Association said it had strengthened its policies in response.

Then in February 2021 the Scout Association had to apologise to the teenager's family when the jury at a second inquest had to be discharged due to the organisation failing to provide the hearing with full information.

On Thursday, the coroner told jurors they would need to consider a series issues about the trip, including why no written risk assessment was done, how no scout leader on the trip had the requisite first aid qualification and the manner in which the boys were supervised.

Ms Leonard called her son "just wonderful", saying he was a talented writer who "loved books" and his school had named its library in his memory.

She added he had just enrolled in a film and television college course before his death.

She told the inquest: "I just wanted to say that I never worried about him with the Scouts, never."

But she described how she received a phone call from one of the scout leaders on the trip to tell her Ben had fallen.

"He told me he wasn't allowed to go up to him - that they were working on him," said Mrs Leonard.

She said that was when she knew "it wasn't very good".

The inquest, which is expected to last four weeks, continues.