The official investigation into the death in 2013 of the girl Ella Kissi-Debrah, who was then nine years old, has concluded that "environmental pollution was a relevant factor both in causing and aggravating her asthma attacks", and that the minor " it was exposed to levels of nitrogen dioxide and floating particles that exceeded the levels recommended by the World Health Organization ”.
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Forensic courts have been part of the British judicial system since the passage of the Forensics and Justice Act 2009. They have the capacity to investigate, ex officio or at the request of a party, the causes of any death, although they cannot attribute specific criminal responsibilities.
Their sentences have the legal force of any precedent.
The South London Coroner's Court decision is a historic legal milestone, as a death has not been directly linked to air pollution until now, and will add pressure on the Boris Johnson government to toughen rules to curb air pollution. urban pollution.
The last two years of the little girl's life, who lived with her family in southeast London, were a constant visit to the hospital.
Emissions from the South Circular Road, passing through Lewisham, contributed to the rapid decline in Ella's health.
The continuous asthma attacks ended up to 30 times in the emergency room.
His lungs failed at least five times during that time.
“Throughout her life, Ella lived near highly polluting roads.
It was not very difficult for me to conclude that his personal exposure to nitrogen dioxide and floating particles was very high, ”coroner Philip Barlow said Wednesday.
Ella's mother, Rosamund Kissi-Debrah, a teacher, has devoted all her efforts in recent years to achieve a review of the first forensic sentence, in 2014, which was limited to pointing to an acute respiratory syndrome as the cause of death.
The London High Court overturned the sentence and ordered a second investigation.
"Today's decision must be a turning point to prevent other families from suffering the emotional tear suffered by Ella's," said Labor Mayor of London Sadiq Khan.
"Air pollution is a public health crisis, especially for our children, and the research has served to highlight the urgency of pushing for more aggressive measures, such as expanding the Low Emission Zone to central London," Khan asked.
“The authorities never provided Ella's mother with information about the risks to the health of the little girl posed by the contamination, nor its ability to aggravate her asthma.
If he had received this information, he would have taken the necessary measures to prevent the death of the girl ”, affirms the judgment of the forensic court.
British environmental organizations have welcomed a decision that will speed up the passage of a new Clean Air Act.
Clean Air London
has asked that the new text be called “Her Law”, and that it serve to attribute new obligations and rights to local authorities in order to reduce emissions from vehicles and buildings.
The Royal Commission for Environmental Pollution, created to tackle this problem, concluded its work to no avail in 2011. The Johnson Administration, however, launched its Clean Air Strategy last year and pushed through the legislative work necessary to address the problem. .
An official report by coroner Stephen Holgate in 2018 concluded that the pollution levels recorded at the Catford monitoring station, just over a kilometer from where Ella and her family lived, consistently exceeded the levels allowed by US legislation. the EU for at least three years prior to the child's death.
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