A stepfather who left his five-year-old stepson alone for hours at a water park has pleaded guilty to manslaughter by gross negligence.
Paul Smith, 36, had denied any wrong-doing in relation to the death of Charlie Dunn but changed his plea part-way through the Birmingham Crown Court trial on Tuesday.
Charlie, who could not swim, was found submerged in the 4.5ft-deep Blue Lagoon lake at Bosworth Water Park near Hinckley, Leicestershire, in July 2016.
His body was found by three children who felt his hair in the water while looking for a pair of swimming goggles.
He had wandered off while Smith and Charlie’s mother Lynsey Dunn were packing up the car to leave the water park.
Paul Smith (right) pleaded guilty at Birmingham Crown Court to the manslaughter of Charlie Dunn
Charlie was found underwater in a lagoon by swimmers at Bosworth Water Park in Leicestershire in July last year
Smith was allegedly seen smoking and heard saying: ‘For f***’* sake, we’re ready to go. I don’t know where he f****** is.’
They were seen standing by the boot of their car as Charlie – who they said was ‘terrified’ of water – played in the pool without armbands, the court was told.
The outdoor pool had signs telling parents that children must be supervised, and was not required to have lifeguards because of its depth.
Paramedics tried to save the youngster after they were called to the park, but were unable to.
He died in hospital the next day.
At the time his parents said he had been out of sight for five to 10 minutes, the court heard.
Prosecutor Mary Prior QC also described a previous visit he made to the park with Smith and Dunn six weeks before he died.
She told how one woman there was so concerned by the couple allowing Charlie to run unsupervised on a strip of land between the lagoon and a fishing lake that she told them ‘in no uncertain terms that she was not happy with what Charlie was doing’.
But the couple simply told her ‘he’d be all right’ before wandering off to the pedalos without telling the boy. The court heard Charlie eventually realised he was alone and ran off to catch up with them.
Mrs Prior said Smith, 36, and Dunn, 28, often left the boy – who was described as having ‘no road sense whatsoever’ – to play in the street near his home unsupervised in the year before to the tragedy.
In one incident, when Charlie was four, a neighbour saw him going up a grass bank in his pedal car towards a main road that was on the other side. The neighbour reached him just before he went into the traffic.
In another incident, Charlie came ‘perilously close’ to straying on to a main road. At the time, Smith was rummaging through a skip for items to salvage.
It can also be reported for the first time that Smith admitted witness intimidation in connection with another incident relating to Charlie, prior to the trial.
On Tuesday Charlie’s mother also admitted a charge of neglect in connection with her son after an incident between July 2014 and July 2016, in which she failed to supervise him when Charlie was found in his pedal car next to a busy road.
Dunn also pleaded guilty to a second charge of neglect in relation to another youngster, who cannot be named, after an incident in the summer of 2015.
Mrs Justice Nerys Jefford said: ‘I will sentence both defendants on December 20.’