Maybe You're Warning The Wrong People?

The parents of teenager Natasha Ednan-Laperouse, who died after eating a Pret a Manger baguette, today urged the Government and food firms to 'wake up' to 'how serious food allergies are'.

Why them? Why not parents of children and pharmacists? Because in this story they seem equally culpable... 

Nadim and Tanya Ednan-Laperouse spoke out while attending the inquest into the death of Hannah Jacobs, 13, who suffered catastrophic reaction after a single sip of a Costa Coffee hot chocolate. The couple who founded The Natasha Allergy Research Foundation said they were 'devastated' to learn of the case and added: 'How many more children must die before we start taking food allergy seriously?'

Who is that 'we'? Well, maybe start with this girl's own mother: 

On the first day of the inquest at East London Coroner's Court, Hannah's mother, Abimbola Duyile, recalled the moments that led to the tragedy. She had warned staff about her daughter's allergies, she said, apologising to the barista for 'being a pain' after requesting the milk steamer was cleaned to ensure traces of cow's milk were eliminated.

Now, Reader, like me, you may well be thinking that if you have a life-threatening food allergy, you'd be mad to eat anything you haven't personally prepared, or observed being made in front of you. 

And this girl appears to have been the same, reportedly preparing her own food and drink in the main. So why did she take the risk on this occasion? 

Ms Duyile said Hannah had enjoyed a soya hot chocolate at Costa on several occasions before, having been convinced by her mother to try a hot drink there.

Why would you...? I mean...to trust foreign staff who might not fully understand the risk seems crazy, does it not? 

Yet Costa employee Ana Sanz, who was an assistant manager at Costa franchise in Barking at the time of Hannah's death but was not working until later that day, admitted to the court that she had used Google Translate to help her complete allergy training, as her first language is Spanish. She suggested that other employees she worked with may have also done the same.

*sigh* The employee who took the order, one Urmi Akter, was supported at the inquest herself by a Bengali interpreter. You couldn't make it up, could you?

Roughly 10 minutes after being served the drink in February last year, Hannah took her first sip and almost immediately began vomiting, according to her mother's statement. Ms Duyile then rushed her daughter across the road to a pharmacy, where she asked for antihistamines which had previously worked to relieve her allergic symptoms. However, Hannah complained that her chest was becoming 'tight and painful' and she was struggling to breathe. A pharmacist administered an auto-injector filled with adrenaline (also known as Epipen), but it contained half the dose of medication recommended for teenagers and adults.

So despite this seriously life-threatening allergy, she didn't have an epi-pen already? Just who is responsible here, because I'm not convinced it's solely the food companies.

But Shouldn’t The Purchaser Do Their Bit Too?

... but (coroner) Dilks said she would not be making any direct recommendations to the three major food ordering apps, which had no legal requirement to provide allergen information.

Speaking afterwards, James’s parents, Stuart and Jill, said they believed the inquest had “shone a light on much bigger issues that need urgent attention”. They said the UK had one of the biggest online food delivery markets in the world and one in four people lived with allergies. “Online food platforms have a major role in choosing who they partner with and how food is safely provided to customers by their partner providers.

“We now take this opportunity to publicly call on the bosses of the big 3 apps, Will Shu of Deliveroo, Matthew Price of UberEats and Claire Pointon of Just Eat, to meet with us to carry out a collaborative review of what further steps can be taken to better protect consumers. This is not about competition or sales. This is about people’s lives.”

Those wicked food delivery companies, eh? Just careless about whether they poison their customers? Well... 

Karen Dilks returned a narrative conclusion outlining how Atkinson ordered the food on the app, that he did not contact the restaurant directly to inform them of his allergies and that he did not have an EpiPen available once he started to feel unwell.

Hmmm... 

As Well They Might Be Embarassed...

...even academics who learn I am working on the topic of fatphobia are often quick to change the subject, turning away in embarrassed silence.

In fact, it's a good thing. It shows they still have some shame about how far academia has fallen.

So why are we getting better on most forms of bias while becoming arguably even more fatphobic as a society? Part of the answer has to do with the fact that fatness, unlike many other forms of marginalisation, is perceived as a choice.

For a vast majority of them, it is. The fact that we have 'fat activists' at all proves that. What other reasons could there be? 

But careful attention to the evidence on this topic paints a different picture. Numerous factors – from our inequitable food environment to economic injustice to stress to trauma to common health conditions and medications – dictate our size, and a combination of these have contributed to an uptick in fatness in both the US and the UK, among other countries, in recent decades.

I fail to see how an 'inequitable food environment' contributes to anything, let alone the rise of lardarses... 

True political progress requires that we pause and look around and extend a sympathetic – better, solidaristic – arm to everyone. There should be no limit to our capacity as humans for inclusivity; there should be no size restrictions either.

Go tell gravity that, love. If it listens, I might.  

Was She An Orphan, Graeme..?

E-scooter deaths have doubled since police stopped seizing them on the roads, a coroner has warned after a 14-year-old rider died in a collision with a minibus.

Fatima Abukar was riding a battery powered e-scooter in East Ham, London, when she lost control while alongside a minibus and fell under its wheels.

And...her parents? Shouldn't they have come in for some stick too? 

In a report calling for action to prevent future deaths, Graeme Irvine, senior coroner in east London, said there was a direct correlation between the rise in deaths and Scotland Yard’s decision last November to no longer routinely seize e-scooters being ridden illegally on public roads.

Are we really losing any potential brain surgeons? 

Britain’s biggest force announced officers will only confiscate them from repeat offenders or when ‘necessary to keep the public safe’.

I'm not sure how you can have 'repeat offenders' if you don't enforce the law in the first place... 

It's Not Green Flag's Fault, Judge...

A judge has slammed Green Flag for refusing to help a stranded nursing student motorist 'because she wasn't parked on the hard shoulder' before she was killed when a truck hit her car.

The accident happened a few moments after the call. Unless they had a Star Trek style transporter they couldn't have got to her in time anyway...

'In my judgement, Green Flag should take it upon themselves to ring 999 to help the person because it was obvious that Mrs Dumbuya would have been panicking and wondering whether to stay or leave the vehicle. She would have been worried about crossing the motorway.'

Why the scathing remarks about Green Flag? Why should it be their responsibility, rather than the driver? Just because she was a nursing student, or because she was from an ethnic minority, two groups we are supposed to worship? 

'It would be easy to wreak revenge on the defendant by jailing him but I rather suspect Mrs Dumbuya's family are not interested in vengeance.'

Bowers, 33, of Bamber Bridge, Preston, Lancashire, admitted causing death by careless driving and was sentenced to six months in jail, suspended for 12 months. He was also banned from driving for three years.

I guess he was of good charact...

Oh. 

Dashcam analysis revealed Bowers, who had a previous conviction for drink-driving and driving without due care and attention from 2016, was travelling at 55 mph and had an unobstructed view of the Kia from about 150 to 175 metres away - but an accident report concluded he did not appreciate the Kia was stationary.

He initially denied wrongdoing but eventually pleaded guilty ahead of his trial 18 months later.

Sounds to me as if the judge was misdirecting the rightous anger he should have been feeling. And in a macabre postscript, the 'Mail's' lack of proofreading gives us this gem:

 I think she knew...

And Your Efforts Will Be for Nothing...

"On behalf of the Crown Prosecution Service, I would like to pay tribute to the courageous and dignified way N'Taya's family and friends have conducted themselves during the entire legal process.

They have had to hear the most traumatic evidence relating to their beautiful daughter during the trial. "

Not the least of which was their daughter's fatal stupidity in choice of partner: 

Liverpool Crown Court heard Diakite was previously accused of assaulting his partner in October 2020. However, the next day, after police had visited their Prince Alfred Road home and recorded the young mum's allegations on bodycam, she made a retraction statement.

/facepalm 

Diakite, of Prince Alfred Road, Wavertree, will be sentenced on Monday, March 21. High Court judge, Mr Justice Stephen Morris, directed that the asylum seeker, from the Ivory Coast, must attend court for that hearing.

Anyone aware of any wars on the Ivory Coast that might have provided a need to seek asylum? No? Me neither... 

DCI Speight said:"We have increased the number of officers in our specialist domestic abuse teams and have also used domestic violence prevention notices, as well as the Domestic Violence Disclosure Schemes (DVDS), also known as Clare's Law, which gives someone in a relationship 'the right to ask' for information from various agencies, including the police, about a partner's previous convictions, cautions, reprimands or final warnings for any offence of violence."

And until women choose their partners with more care and - when that proves a mistake in spite of it - take action to protect themselves, it'll be yet another waste of time. 

Someone's Got To Make Some Changes...

...a year on from Everard’s death, the parents of Spinks have delivered a stark warning that mistakes are still being made in the cases such as their daughter’s.

“After everything that happened last year, the perception of the police with the general public is really low at the moment,” said her father, Richard Spinks. “They’ve got to realise people don’t trust them. They’ve got to do something, they’ve got to make some changes.”

They aren't the only ones though, are they? 

After her complaint, Sellers was fired from his job. Gracie was advised to report him to the police, but chose not to pursue a restraining order and asked police to caution him instead. Gracie had no more contact with Sellers, and as far as she and her family were concerned, the problem was dealt with.

It wasn't. Because the police don't have a crystal ball and can't predict who will turn out just to be a normal run-of-the-mill bitter ex, and who will turn out to be a murderer. 

Especially if they aren't assisted to do so by the victim... 

It later emerged that around a month prior to the attack, a rucksack containing weapons – a hammer, axe and knives – as well as Viagra had been found across the road from the field and handed in to Derbyshire constabulary. An investigation after Gracie’s death revealed that documentation in the bag, which Sellers frequently carried to work, had details on it linking it to his family home. The force is now being investigated by the police watchdog over its handling of Gracie’s original complaint against Sellers, and the rucksack.

The parents - understandably - point to this as a smoking gun. Perhaps they've seen too many police dramas where this would be taken seriously and prompt a confession from the miscreant. 

However, reality tells us that even if they had linked it, losing property - 'Oh, thanks, officers, I've been looking for this' - isn't a crime.