Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, and Steve Rotheram, Mayor of Liverpool, pledge their support for Zane's Law
 
Today, the 21st October, Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, and Steve Rotheram, Mayor of Liverpool City Region, are pledging their support for Zane's Law, named in remembrance of a child - Zane Gbangbola.
 
If little Zane had lived, today would have been his 19th birthday, but tragically he died, aged 7 years old, when flood water passed through contaminated landfill into the basement of his Chertsey home, during the terrible flooding of 2014. 
 
Zane's death was both tragic and preventable.
 
For two decades, Mayor Andy Burnham has led the fight of the Hillsborough families for a Hillsborough Law - the Public Office (Accountability) Bill - which is currently making its way through parliament: Legislative reform to “impose a duty on public authorities and public officials to act with candour, transparency and frankness” and to “to create an offence in relation to public authorities and public officials who mislead the public”. And Mayor Steve Rotheram has represented and supported the Hillsborough families in their tireless fight for the same.
 
Duty of candour will also be bound into Zane’s Law, detailing the necessary measures required for local authorities to be both obligated and fully supported to deal with the ticking time bomb of contaminated land and related waters, following the polluter pays principle, and in line with the United Nations’ call for the ‘human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment’.
 
The Manchester and Liverpool Mayors’ call of support joins with that of London Mayor, Sir Sadiq Khan, the London Assembly, and eight local authorities who have all passed resolutions of support; Lewes District Council being the first, followed by Adur, Brighton and Hove City Council, Stroud, Rother, Runnymede, Cheshire West & Chester and Newham. Today, on Zane’s birthday, the Zane's Law Campaign is inviting every elected councillor of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority and the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority to do the same.
 
The UK Landfills Campaign, which has grown out of the campaign for Zane's Law, currently represents over 30 different local campaigns, fighting for action in their areas, where contaminated land is causing harm to people and the environment. On Wednesday 11 June they gathered at the Houses of Parliament, together with politicians, trade unions and legal representatives for an inaugural 'Zane's Law Summit'. Work on drafting Zane’s Law is now underway.
 
Baroness Natalie Bennett is committed to introducing Zane's Law - the Clean Land (Human Rights) Bill into the next Parliament as a Private Members Bill, supported by the TUC, the CWU, Unite, NEU, Unison and the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), among others. It was FBU frontline firefighters who discovered hydrogen cyanide present at high levels in Zane's home on the night he died; hydrogen cyanide that left Zane's Daddy, Kye, paralysed from the same incident and that he, Nicole (Zane's Mummy) and their thousands of supporters, including the FBU, believe killed Zane
 
Remembering Zane on his birthday, in this eleventh agonising year since his death, his parents Kye and Nicole said:
 
“When the state withholds the truth of a child's death, there is more than 'justice delayed is justice denied' going on!

Withheld justice eviscerates and silences victims beyond the horrific act that took their loved one’s  life. Withheld justice removes the power to challenge, to speak freely, and to act on information. It halts lives, destroys relationships, careers, homes, health, wellbeing, trust, and any chance to grieve in truth.

Zane will forever be our precious seven-year-old boy, who we miss every moment of the day. But we Pray for a legacy of truth, and that protection for others will come.”

https://www.truthaboutzane.com/uploads/b/7501978-231746902277101142/zane_in_memory_163.mp4

Zane Law motion passed unanimously at TUC Conference 2025 sending a shockwave to Government and Morning Live covering Zane’s Law again on BBC 👼🏽
Zane may have been taken from us 139 months today and we may not be able to move him into Halls at Uni but ZANE’s VOICE WILL BE HEARD and future deaths prevented. ❤️
I Love you so much son, I am the wind beneath your wings my angel. Mummy and Daddy were both at conference today ❤️

Newham Borough Council unanimously vote to back Zane's Law calling for tighter regulation and oversight of contaminated landfill sites and polluted waters.  Leaders and Members warmly applauded Zane's parents and those dedicated to protecting communities at risk. 

The mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan has pledged his support for a proposed new law to ensure greater transparency over contaminated land.
Zane's Law is named after seven-year-old Zane Gbangbola, whose parents say was killed by gas from landfill when the River Thames flooded their home in Chertsey, Surrey, in 2014.
Proposed measures include requiring councils to keep public registers of contaminated sites.
A spokesperson for the Truth About Zane campaign said: "The mayor's support signals growing momentum for legislative change, and increasing recognition of Zane's family's decade-long campaign."
A statement from the Mayor of London's office said: "The Mayor supports the London Assembly's motion in favour of Zane's Law.
"He shares the Assembly's concerns over impacts on Londoners, and the potential for land which may be contaminated not to be identified as such, particularly given the responsibility sits between the local authorities and the Environment Agency.
"He is also concerned that there are inadequate resources available for regulatory authorities to properly address the issue."
Zane's Law would ensure that all potentially contaminated land is identified, made public, regularly inspected and properly cleaned up.
It would mean local authorities would be given the funding, resources and powers to act.
Kye Gbangbola, Zane's father, was paralysed in the same incident that killed his son.
He met the mayor at the London Assembly on Friday to discuss the proposed new Law.
Sir Sadiq told Mr Gbangbola how "sorry" he was for the "tragic loss" of his son's life.

Implementing Zane's Law was adopted as Green Party policy in September.
A motion supporting the proposed law was unanimously accepted by the London Assembly in November.
Zack Polanski, Green London Assembly member, who has championed the cause within City Hall, said: "The mayor has made an important step in backing Zane's Law, but there's still so much more that can be done.
"He should use his influence to urge the government to bring in this law and ensure its full support and implementation."
An inquest into Zane's death concluded he was killed by carbon monoxide from a petrol pump used to clear floodwater from his home in Thameside, but Mr Gbangbola and Ms Lawler say the pump was not used.
They have accessed public health documents that stated firefighters found hydrogen cyanide in their home, but no carbon monoxide.
Lewes District Council was the first to support the law in February 2024, followed by several others including Brighton & Hove City Council and Adur District Council.
​Original Aticle by Stuart Maisner - BBC News, South East

Campaigners calling for ‘Zane’s Law’, to protect communities from contaminated land, held a summit at the Houses of Parliament on the 11 June.
The proposed law would improve transparency around historic landfill sites and clarify who is responsible for making these safe. It is named after seven-year-old Zane Gbangbola, who died on 8 February 2014 when floodwater passed through landfill into the basement of his family’s home in Chertsey. His father, Kye Gbangbola, was left paralysed by the same incident. 
Surrey Fire and Rescue Services detected high levels of hydrogen cyanide in Zane’s home. The landfill site has still not been properly tested, despite the discovery of a 2010 report warning of an “unacceptable risk” of migrating landfill gasses from the site causing “significant harm, serious injury and capable of causing death”. 
Campaigners from more than twenty communities experiencing severe and sometimes fatal harms from toxic landfill and contaminated water spoke at the event, supported by the FBU and Baroness Natalie Bennett. 
Speakers also included Des Collins, the solicitor who represented families affected by the toxic waste scandal in Corby, as dramatised in the recent Netflix series Toxic Town.  
Zane’s parents, Kye and Nicole Gbangbola, continue to call for government action, saying that “Britain should be leading the way in environmental law. Instead our legislation is woefully inadequate.” 
Baroness Natalie Bennett, who will chair the hybrid meeting, said:  
Current UK regulations on contaminated land are grossly inadequate and a threat to the safety of many, especially given climate breakdown, rising sea levels, increased rainfall, and flooding. Zane’s Law proposes measures to address this crisis. The need to act was acknowledged in the 1990 Environment Protection Act, but then the protective provisions were removed after lobbying of the Conservative government by mass house builders. I hope, but sadly don't expect, that Sir Keir Starmer's government would step up to one of its primary responsibilities, to protect life." 
Steve Wright, Fire Brigades Union general secretary said:  
Contamination from unregulated, historic landfill poses a serious threat to the environment, health and lives. With the climate emergency resulting in increasing floods, which threaten to spread this contamination, the government cannot ignore the rising risk. 
Everyone should have the right to live in a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. Firefighters, who are on the frontline of flooding incidents, stand with the communities who have been tragically impacted and with the continued call for justice for Zane. 
The UK government must bring in Zane’s Law to save lives by properly regulating contaminated land and water.” 
Zane’s parents, Kye and Nicole Gbangbola, said:  
Today we’ll hear the brave voices of people who are struggling to get protection from the horrific impacts of living in proximity to toxic landfill and poisoned water – and hear them at the heart of government. Britain should be leading the way in environmental law, instead our legislation is woefully inadequate. We need Zane’s Law now!” 
ORIGINAL ARTICLE >>


“His parents, Kye and Nicole, and Zane himself were harmed by hydrogen cyanide gas that leaked from a nearby flooded historic landfill and entered their home. Zane paid the ultimate price for this silent, buried danger — with his life.
Their fight for truth has ignited a nationwide campaign, as more and more victims of these polluting time bombs come to light.
“Nicole and Kye, your courage, persistence, and clarity — and Zane, your life — have brought these issues into the light...” said Douglas-Home, “...as opposed to the unbearable darkness of Zane’s untimely death.”

More than 100 old landfills across England containing potentially hazardous material have flooded at least once this century, according to analysis by Unearthed.
Historic landfills can contain dangerous substances such as heavy metals, persistent pollutants, pharmaceuticals and industrial waste. They often lack measures such as linings that limit the risks of these pollutants affecting the surrounding environment. 
Unearthed also found over 2,600 former dump sites with potentially hazardous contents within 50m of watercourses across England.
As climate change threatens to make floods more frequent in Britain the risk of landfills leaching substances into watercourses goes up, scientists warn.
“We’ve been landfilling waste for hundreds of years, but we haven’t really considered the consequences of climate change on those historic landfills and the pollution they contain,” Professor Kate Spencer, an expert on historic landfills at Queen Mary University of London, told Unearthed.  
“We now know far more about the potentially harmful effects of the waste materials and pollutants we’ve dumped, particularly chemicals like PFAS and PCBs, and how the impacts of climate change, such as flooding, could reopen pathways for those pollutants to enter the environment,” she added. 
PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are a group of thousands of man-made chemicals that are widely used in consumer products to make them heat resistant, non-stick or stain-repellant. Exposure to some of these chemicals has been associated with cancers and health complaints, including liver disease and decreased fertility. PCBs (Polychlorinated Biphenyls) are man-made organic chemicals that were used in a variety of industrial processes, often for their flame-retardant properties. They have been phased out globally starting in the 1970s, with strict controls on their production and disposal, partly due to their links with cancer. They are among the substances known as “forever chemicals” because they take hundreds or even thousands of years to break down in the environment, meaning that even if they were dumped decades ago, they could still pose a risk to those who are exposed to them now. 
There are almost 20,000 historic landfill sites across the country, but records of what these sites contain are patchy. There is no central record of whether former landfills have been officially designated as contaminated sites, as this happens at local authority level but scientists believe they could contain hidden dangers. 
“Most of the 20,000-odd former landfill sites are likely to be quite safe and contain relatively inert waste, but some could be quite sinister,” Dr David Megson, a scientist at Manchester Metropolitan University who previously worked remediating old landfills, told Unearthed. “Historic reporting of what went into these sites wasn’t great, so in many cases, you’ve got little idea what is in there until you dig into it.”
Unearthed, working with Dr Paul Brindley at the University of Sheffield, overlaid Environment Agency (EA) flooding data onto the government’s map of historic landfills across England to identify sites that have flooded since the turn of the century.

Using the government’s dataset, Unearthed identified landfills that had closed before rules came into force in the mid-1990s to protect the environment from pollution, and those which had had at least half of their surface area flooded. We removed any landfills that have been built on or otherwise concreted over. Within this subset, Unearthed looked for landfills marked as taking potentially harmful waste, including “commercial” and “industrial”, as well as “special”waste, which requires special disposal requirements due to its potential to pollute and “liquid sludge”, which comes from industrial processes. 
The EA’s data does not record every flood event, while the historic landfills database only contains a partial record of what went into these former dump sites. Only 55% of sites in the historic landfills dataset record a “last input” date, showing when they stopped receiving waste. Owing to the patchy nature of both datasets, Unearthed’s figures are likely to be an underestimate.
Sites across the country
Historic landfills are dotted all over the country, but most people would have no idea they live near one. There are many public parks and nature reserves built on old landfills, and Unearthed identified instances where business parks and housing estates were built directly alongside or even overlapping former landfills with potentially hazardous contents that had flooded this century. 
The Green party, along with councils including Brighton & Hove, have backed ‘Zane’s law’, which aims to update the UK’s rules on toxic waste disposal. The law is named after Zane Gbangbola, a Surrey seven-year-old who died in 2014. His family believe his death was caused by toxic chemicals that entered their home when a nearby disused landfill flooded. 
Gbangbola’s family said that no environmental searches on their property had identified that the lake behind it was a former landfill site – this information only came to light after their son had died. Lavenders, the former landfill site, is not included in Unearthed’s analysis, as the historic landfills database does not record the types of waste it received or the date it closed.

Zane’s law would impose a duty on councils to record potentially contaminated sites, and to investigate and, where necessary, remediate former landfill sites. It would also make central government responsible for covering the cost of these works.
Green party peer Natalie Bennett told Unearthed: “The lack of adequate regulations on contaminated land poses a threat to human life and welfare, especially given climate breakdown, rising sea levels, increased rainfall, and flooding.”
Zane’s law would align the UK with “global best practice for the protection of communities from hazardous land,” she added. 
A ‘reactive approach’
Local authorities are required to keep a register of land that is known to be contaminated, and to inspect any sites that could be contaminated, but one expert said there has been an “erosion of funding” to do this work.
Councils used to be able to bid for money through the Contaminated Land Capital programme, which the EA administered, but this grant ended in 2017.
“Local authorities will be aware of problematic sites, but due to the lack of adequate funding, they have had to adopt a reactive approach,” explained Dr Grant Richardson, an environmental consultant specialising in landfills and contaminated land.
“If there’s no obvious risk of harm or pollution emanating from these sites, nothing will be done to investigate or remediate them unless sites come to be developed,” he added. “That means there are likely hundreds or potentially thousands of sites that have not been properly investigated that could be leaching contaminants at harmful levels into the environment.”
Councils in England are struggling with a funding gap that could reach £8bn by 2028/29, a spokesperson for the Local Government Association, a membership body for local authorities, told Unearthed, adding: “Without adequate funding, councils will continue to struggle to provide crucial services – with devastating consequences for those who rely on them.”
The central government is stepping up funding to councils, a spokesperson for Defra said.
Our investigation found confusion over who is responsible for regulating and monitoring historic landfills. In two instances, local authorities who Unearthed contacted about potentially hazardous former landfills in their regions told usthat the EA was responsible – even though the agency has stated publicly that it is “not the regulator of former landfill sites”.
A spokesperson for the EA told Unearthed: “While the responsibility for dealing with contaminated land in England, including historic landfills, lies with local authorities, we continue to support them in carrying out their duties set out clearly under environmental regulations.”
Information on who holds the licence for these historic landfills is lacking. Out of the 105 landfills that flooded since 2000, 13 have no licence holder listed at all. Across the country, more than 8,600 – 43% – of historic landfills have no licence holder listed and no date for when a licence was surrendered. 
Charles Watson, founder of environmental campaign group River Action, said: “Environmental protection in the UK has been subject over the last decade and a half to round after round of defunding from government. However, failure to provide adequate funding to regulate something as basic as landfill sites that could be leaching highly hazardous waste is all the more shocking.
“If our regulators can’t sort out how to protect us from pollutants that in theory have already been ‘safely’ disposed of, then we have little hope of ever seeing a holistic approach to combatting the wider sources of water pollution.”
Original article here>>

Graphics by Revisual Labs

By KYE GBANGBOLA


ACROSS this country there are families suffering from living in proximity to contaminated land and polluted water.
The suffering varies, from birth defects, as we saw in the award winning Netflix drama series ‘Toxic Town’, to miscarriages, low birth weight, cancers, tumours, respiratory issues, skin irritations, neurological deficiencies, infertility and cardio vascular disease.
It renders some homes and gardens too smelly and unbearable to stay in, homes can be unmortgageable, children can be doubled up in agony in nursery playgrounds as fumes from spontaneously combusting fires on landfills, drift across neighbourhoods.
The acclaimed programme ‘Britain’s Toxic Secret’ which was shown on BBC2 last week, now available on iPlayer features the fight for justice of the family of Zane Gbangbola and the struggle for Zane’s Law legislation.
The programme shows also cases, evidence, and public, experts, and political interest in ending abuses perpetrated on the public.
It states, authorities not considering the impact on human health is criminal.
The case of my son, Zane Gbangbola, is horrific! The killing of a child is horrific!
Zane was an innocent seven- year-old, killed in the brutal early hours of 8th February 2014, when his home was filled with the deadly toxic, invisible, odourless nerve agent Hydrogen Cyanide gas (HCN).
His mother, Nicole, found Zane collapsed, she screamed for help, as she tried to resuscitate her child, and dial 999, not knowing her own life was in mortal danger, she could collapse at any moment.
The HCN was detected by specialist HAZMAT, in a major incident, necessitating evacuating the area, and decontaminating more than 50 emergency workers.
A bridge over the River Thames at Chertsey, Surrey, was closed off, and the area evacuated for weeks.
Hydrogen Cyanide was the gas used to kill people in WWII gas chambers.
Zane’s father Kye was found in cardiac arrest, he didn’t recover, his flesh blistered and peeled off his head and back, and he was diagnosed paralysed due to Hydrogen Cyanide poisoning.
Kye and Nicole are ordinary people like you, living in an ordinary street, but unknown to them, the field next door with a lake, was secret landfill.
According to the BMJ (British Medical Journal) 80% of people in this country live within 2km of landfill.
Zane’s case is dubbed ‘The most toxic cover-up of them all’. It’s a scandal in plain sight, public authorities claim Zane’s father poisoned himself and the family with carbon monoxide (CO), but Freedom of Information requests, and expert reports revealed no CO was detected, and there was no CO source in Zane’s home.
The toxin present was very high levels of Hydrogen Cyanide.
Truth About Zane has mass union (TUC, FBU, CWU, NEU, Unison, Unite, NASUWT, HLN), and cross-party support, calling on the Government to grant Zane an Independent Panel Inquiry with full disclosure; this is how Hillsborough families, and Daniel Morgan, got the truth.

​118,000 people have signed Zane’s petition, following Zane being featured as a burning injustice in a Labour Party Manifesto. Zane’s parents speak out knowing others in this country are in danger.
Following a mass movement of grass roots support, amongst local authorities across the country, they are calling for Zane’s Law.
Zane’s Law will protect Britain’s communities from injury, harm and irremediable death, and is scheduled for a Parliamentary Summit on June 11th it proposes:
1. Every local authority must keep a full, regularly updated Register of Land that may be contaminated within their boundary.
2. The Environment Agency must keep a full, public National Register of Contaminated Land to be regularly updated by information from local authorities.
3. The Registers of Land must be accessible and available for inspection by the general public. Relevant local authorities must fully inspect any land registered that may be contaminated and must fully remediate or enforce remediation of any land which poses harm to public safety, or which pollutes controlled waters.*
4. Relevant local authorities must be responsible for inspecting previously closed landfill sites and fully remediating them, or enforcing their remediation, when they pose a risk of significant harm to people or controlled waters.
5. The Government must take full responsibility for providing the necessary funds for local authorities to meet these new requirements, following the ‘polluter pays’ principle: to recover costs as appropriate where those responsible for the pollution can be identified.
* Controlled waters are groundwater or surface water intended for human consumption.
Spontaneously, a coalition of over 20 landfill and polluted water campaigns have come together calling for the need to protect against totally preventable harms now and in the future.
Some of these abuses involve public authorities meant to protect the public, being enablers, and in some cases, local authorities are the cause of the harms as found for Corby Council in the Netflix drama series, ‘Toxic Town’.
A child is featured in the BBCs ‘Britain’s Toxic Secret’, where lead leached from contaminated land into her garden, contaminants poisoned her as she played in the soil rendering her non verbal, poor mobility, and presenting as severely autistic. Her family stopped garden play, soil ingestion and dermal contact, and she totally recovered.
Dr Ian Mudway, from Imperial College London, says the global burden of elevated lead exposure causes 0.5 to one million deaths a year.
Addressing Clean Air; as we see with the campaign for Ella Kissi Debrah, Clean Water; Feargal Sharkey’s campaign, and the third leg of the stool is ‘What Lies Beneath our Feet’ in the ground, the toxic legacy, emanating from industrialisation;
Harm from landfill is totally preventable; the Environmental Protection Act requires sites that are a ‘risk to health’ to be prioritised. We should listen to people harmed, and through enforceable law; Zane’s Law, requires the hazards to be investigated, the data collected, proper evaluation, and action taken to protect them.
This approach is achieved in progressive countries, and it is endorsed by United Nations resolutions.
Laws should not allow people to be killed and harmed, placing profit before people is criminal, and perpetrators must be held to account.
Zane’s Law incorporates the Polluter Pays principle, reducing the cost burden on the Environment Agency; ensuring the community harmed, and the wider public are not burdened with costs of remediation, where this may be required, and those harmed, are remedied accountably by the perpetrator.
Until we have Zane’s Law families are left at risk! These risks are morally repugnant, reprehensible, and criminal.
Sir Thomas Bingham said: ‘Foul play, abuse, and inhumanity has no place in law’.
Abusive scandals against ordinary people, Post Office, Grenfell, Stephen Lawrence, Infected Blood, Daniel Morgan, Nuclear Veterans, Zane, must end.
The public are awake to the patronising disposition of unaccountable power, and see the need to position laws that protect us all, we owe this to the dead, injured, survivors, and their families.
We must start to rebuild public trust in our public authorities.
If you believe little children should not go to bed at night and be poisoned in their sleep, join us in a short Zoom call on Workers Memorial Day 28th April 2025 at 6pm to 6.20pm.
Daniel Kebede, General Secretary of the NEU, brings Britain’s Andy Burnham, Mayor of Manchester, together with Zane’s Parents on a day we honour the dead, and fight for the living. You can register at https://neu-org-uk.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_jxzFToKYRKmhq94RPlMrqA#/registration.
Do feel free to share. Lives are at risk if we don’t get off our backsides and act.
‘Britain’s Toxic Secret’, makes clear, the protection of our communities, and the environment is urgent. Zane’s parents say ‘the hardest part is missing our little boy, then, worrying whether the government even care about people and children harmed by toxic landfill.’

Sir Keir Starmer is facing mounting pressure to honour his promise to launch a public inquiry into claims of a Government cover-up over a schoolboy who died from toxic fumes.
For years, Starmer has repeatedly backed calls for a Hillsborough-style inquiry into the death of seven-year-old Zane Gbangbola, pledging to 'get to the truth' of the tragedy.
But since coming to power the Prime Minister has been accused of stonewalling the boy's devastated family by failing to deliver on his pledge to help them seek justice.


Little Zane died during flooding after the Thames burst its banks in Chertsey, Surrey, in 2014. It is suspected that lethal hydrogen cyanide gas seeped in from an old military landfill site.
However a coroner's inquest in 2016 blamed Zane's death on carbon monoxide poisoning caused by a petrol pump used to clear floodwater from his home.

Now his parents are ramping up pressure on the Prime Minister and tomorrow [MON] - on what would have been Zane's 18th birthday - they will hand-deliver a special 'birthday card' to Downing Street asking Starmer to honour his promise by granting an Independent Panel Inquiry into the cause of their son's death.
His father, Kye Gbangbola, who was paralysed in the same incident that killed his son, said: 'Now that Sir Keir at last has the power to grant our request, we hope he will stand by his promise.'

He added: 'Really we were hoping that in his first 100 days we would have been granted that inquiry but clearly that has not happened, so this feels like our last ditch attempt.'
Zane's mother, Nicole Lawler, said: 'We just want the truth for our son. We don't want anyone else to have to suffer what we are suffering. The truth must come out.'
Zane's parents will be joined by Ian Murray, the President of the Fire Brigades Union, and together they will be handing the PM a petition signed by more than 118,000 people demanding an inquiry.
The Labour party previously pledged to call an inquiry into Zane's death in its 2019 election manifesto, but that was dropped in the recent election.
In 2020, Starmer told a meeting in the House of Lords that he wanted an inquiry, adding: 'In light of the tragedy the one thing deserved was a full and effective investigation into what happened.
'That didn't happened because at the inquest there wasn't that fearless quest for the truth but a narrow inquiry into the cause of death.'
Documents revealed by The Mail on Sunday showed that hydrogen cyanide had been detected in Zane's home three times - but no carbon monoxide was found.
Despite this, a coroner ruled that the schoolboy was poisoned by carbon monoxide after Spelthorne Borough Council fought for years against requests from Zane's parents for tests.
A Defra spokesman said: 'The case of Zane Gbangbola is tragic, and our thoughts remain with the Gbangbola family.
'Throughout the inquest into his death the Environment Agency and others provided detailed evidence to assist the independent coroner in reaching his conclusions.'
​Original article here >>