Apology to mum of boy who died after falling in river

Police have apologised to the mother of a two-year-old boy who died after falling into a river in Leicester.

Xielo Maruziva fell into the River Soar from Packhorse bridge on 18 February 2024. His body was found nearly four months later at the Aylestone Meadows nature reserve.

Leicester Coroner's Court heard it took an hour to tell Xielo's mum Kayela Smith that her son had fallen into water.

Det Insp Kevin Hames, from Leicestershire Police, apologised for the delay and said it "absolutely" should have happened sooner.

Senior coroner, Prof Catherine Mason - who is overseeing proceedings - said Xielo's father Bradley Maruziva could not explain why Kayela was not told - adding he had been searching "desperately" for his son.

Hames told the court on Monday that Xielo entered the water at 17:00 GMT and at 17:01, police were called, with the first responding officers at the scene at 17:09.

On Tuesday, Hames, the senior investigating officer, told jurors he was not on duty when the police response to Xielo entering the water began, which he said would have been "chaotic".

The inquest was told the force "hoped" to find Xielo on Sunday evening, and agreed with Prof Mason that it should have been a "priority" to inform Xielo's mother.

The inquest heard more than 26km (16.1 miles) of waterways were scoured, and more than 60,000 hours of searches were completed.

Hames told jurors it was the "largest search that has ever been undertaken by Leicestershire Police", and "one of the largest water searches ever undertaken in the United Kingdom".

"None of us thought it would take 109 days to find Xielo, but we did our best to find him," he said.

Jurors were told the search for Xielo was "not constrained" by budgets, and the force sought help "far and wide" to help find him.

The inquest was told Hames was informed by another officer, at about 10:00 on 6 June 2024, that council workers may have found a child's body in some debris that had been cleared from Aylestone Meadows.

The jury was told council workers had been removing flood debris from the area, which was then placed on to a truck and taken to a site in East Leicester.

Hames told the court when the debris was taken to East Leicester, a council worker said he believed he had seen a child's body, and police were called to the scene.

On Monday, the inquest heard Xielo was a "few baby steps" ahead of his aunt and great-aunt - Nicole Maruviza and Memory Maruviza - on Packhorse bridge, when they went for a walk in Aylestone Meadows.

Jurors were told on Tuesday by Hames that he was not able to confirm a distance between the aunts and Xielo at the moment he fell into the water due to the "limitations" of the CCTV from where the camera is situated.

He added from CCTV, he was able to say "with some certainty" the time between Xielo entering the water and Nicole reaching the same point was between "five to six seconds".

When asked by Prof Mason whether he would describe the distance between Nicole and Xielo as being a "significant" distance, he said: "On the balance of probabilities, yes ma'am."

The inquest has heard that the area is a designated flood plain, but did not have signage warning walkers that the water level might be high at the time Xielo entered the water.

After Xielo fell into the water, Leicester City Council - which does not own the bridge but does manage the wider Aylestone Meadows site - put up signage warning of the risk of flooding, and erected fencing at Packhorse bridge, jurors were told.

The inquest continues.

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