This item was originally published on this site
A London council faces questions over the fatal fall of a toddler from one of its tower blocks.
Initial reports suggest the 18-month-old toppled from a faulty ninth floor window the council had reportedly received complaints about.
The Metropolitan police is investigating the death as unexplained.
A statement from Zina Etheridge, Haringey Council chief executive, said: ‘We are aware of a tragic incident of a young child falling from height in Tottenham, and our deepest sympathies are with the family at this time.”
Police were called to 20-storey Stellar House, High Road, Tottenham, at about 11am on Thursday and found the boy, aged about 18 months, in a critical condition on a canopy above the block’s entrance.
The London Ambulance Service, London Fire Brigade and air ambulance attended and the child was taken to a north London hospital but pronounced dead shortly after arrival.
Residents in the tower block said the boy had fallen after opening the window in the ninth-floor flat.
A neighbour, Meral Dervik, said the toddler’s mother had been complaining to Haringey council about a faulty handle for two months but that nothing had been done.
She said: “The window, it was faulty. Nearly two months, that was what [the mother] was saying. She was calling the council to come to fix it. The handle was not secure.”
“I had the same problems with the windows, even the glass is broken.”
The toddler was said to have lived in the flat with his mother, father and older sister.
Image: Google
