An eight-year-old boy drowned after a door leading to a swimming pool at a Scout summer camp was left unlocked, an inquest has heard.

A verdict of misadventure was returned on Jack Sudds, from Eltham, south east London, who was found at the bottom of the pool at Broadstone Warren, near Forest Row, East Sussex, on the first day of a week-long trip.

The inquest is a fresh embarrassment for the Scout Movement, coming only 24 hours after a Welsh coroner criticised two Scout leaders for allowing a 10-year-old boy to fall 600 feet to his death during a climbing trip to Mount Snowdon.

The jury at Friday's inquest in Uckfield, East Sussex, heard how a lifeguard employed by the camp failed to lock the doors to the boys' changing rooms at the outdoor pool.

Alarm did not work

It is thought Jack, who was visiting with a party from the Middle Park Play Scheme in Greenwich, may have entered the pool alone when the rest of his friends returned to their accommodation.

The jury was also told that an emergency alarm did not work when Jack's body was discovered.

He was flown to Eastbourne District General Hospital after the incident on 16 August last year but died later that day.

Qualified lifeguard Wesley Constantinou, 21, told the inquest he was employed by the Scout Association to supervise swimming sessions and lock up the pool complex after his shift.

At the end of the session, he left the pool to check at the camp office if there was anyone else booked to use it.

He locked the pool-side door to the female changing rooms, but failed to lock the boys' changing room, leaving the pool accessible from outside and unsupervised.

He returned with fellow lifeguard Daniel Ricketts and noticed trainers, socks, a T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms in the changing rooms.

'Shadow in the water'

Mr Constantinou said: "I had not been away more than five or 10 minutes. It did not occur to me that someone might be swimming unsupervised. I saw the clothes and I expected to find someone swimming.

"I walked round the pool and Dan walked round the other side. I could see a shadow in the water. We realised we had a small body face down in the pool.

"I dived in, brought Jack to the surface, took him to the side and starting doing what I was trained to do."

After the inquest, Jack's father James Sudds said: "It is the right verdict under the circumstances. It has laid a few things to rest. It is such a shame that door was not locked."

He said his son could not swim and was terrified of water.

Jack had not taken part in an organised swimming session on the day he died but when his friends left the pool complex, he apparently got changed alone in the unlocked changing rooms or climbed through a hole in the fence before entering the water.

Wealden District Council is considering prosecuting the camp.

John Fogg, spokesman for the Scout Association, said: "We are still very upset that the accident happened at all. We will never know exactly what happened and our sympathy goes to the family.

"We understand that the environmental health authorities are going to bring a prosecution under the Health and Safety at Work Act."