“It was a ticking time bomb, and it could have been my son,” said Michelle Leech.
The Dudley mother-of-one has described the “complete horror and disbelief” she felt upon learning a 14-month-old toddler had died at the same nursery her child Jenson attended.
On a Friday afternoon in December 2022, the mother arrived to collect 11-month-old Jenson from Fairytales Day Nursery only to see it flooded with ambulances and police. “My first thought was, is my son involved?”
Noah Sibanda had been found unresponsive in the baby room at the nursery and was pronounced dead in the hospital an hour later.
Last month, nursery worker Kimberley Cookson was jailed for three years and four months for the gross negligence manslaughter of Noah.
Cookson was recorded by CCTV cameras tightly wrapping Noah in a sleeping bag, placing a blanket over his head, and laying him face down to sleep inside an indoor tepee. She also restrained him with her left leg before Noah went unchecked for two hours.
The nursery was permanently closed by Ofsted in April 2023.
Ms Leech told The Independent: “It plagues me every day. The guilt that we feel as parents sending [our son] there to what could have been his death, it just comes back, and it haunts you.”
Along with others whose children attended the nursery, Ms Leech is demanding urgent changes across childcare to stop other parents from experiencing the same tragedy that Noah’s family has.
“There were many other parents that this could have ended in tragedy for, and it hasn’t been acknowledged,” she said. “It needs to happen now, because it will happen again. It’s happened before.
“How far can we trust Ofsted now? It’s really brought Ofsted under the spotlight.”
She is calling for reform to the safeguarding of nurseries, which would see staff undergo more extensive background checks and child protection training. Ms Leech also wants to see a stricter enforcement of health and safety standards, which would mean dangerous practices wouldn’t go under the radar.
Following what happened to Noah, she said more stringent checks into sleeping arrangements are also critical.
Mother-of-two Kayleigh Arnold said her trust in childcare has also been completely broken since Noah’s death. Her daughter Avigail was also at the same nursery, but in a separate room for older toddlers as she was two at the time.
When Ms Arnold found out arrests had been made in relation to Noah’s death, she was horrified: “Your heart goes in your throat, and you just think, what on earth did I do letting my daughter go there?”
Because of the incident, she has decided not to send her youngest daughter, who is one, to nursery.
“She has just turned one, and I was supposed to go back to work, and last month, I said, ‘I just can’t leave her’. So I’ve made the decision to have a couple of years off work because I don’t want to leave her in a nursery anymore,” she added.
“I think it’s affected all of us as parents. We’ve waited three and a half years for some justice for what’s happened.”
She believes more rigorous safety checks at nurseries are needed, as well as more transparency around other parents’ and staff members’ experiences of childcare centres.
Similar calls were made earlier this year after nine-month-old Genevieve Meehan was suffocated to death after being placed face down on a bean bag for over an hour at nursery.
Her mother, Katie Wheeler, is now calling for compulsory CCTV, for unannounced inspections to be carried out by Ofsted, and for mandatory training and statutory safe sleep guidance to be given to all nursery staff. Speaking to The Independent, Ms Wheeler said that they were “shocked” to discover some of the conditions, and that Ofsted reports were only undertaken every few years.
Jonathan, a father of two boys who attended the Fairytales Day Nursery at a nearby site, which is also now closed, said: “You don’t think these things can happen in a childcare setting.
“I was just completely devastated for the family and for the kid.
“There’s a selfish feeling of guilt [you experience] as a parent. You are thinking, what if that was my child, and that’s a hard feeling to have.”
An Ofsted spokesperson said: “Our thoughts remain with Noah’s family and we are deeply sorry for their loss. No child should ever come to harm in a place that is meant to keep them safe.
“As the regulator and inspector of nurseries, we check that they are complying with the requirements set by the government, and we take action when concerns are raised.
“The government has recently announced new funding to allow us to inspect nurseries more frequently and we continually review our work, alongside our partners, to help make nurseries as safe as they can be for children.”
West Midlands Police informed other parents that unsafe sleeping practices had been taking place. A spokesperson said: “After a thorough investigation, and from the evidence we were able to obtain, we worked with the CPS to secure the charges and convictions we did, which incorporated the risk to the health and safety of other children under the Health and Safety at Work Act.”
