Heartbroken mum talks at probe into death of her son in graveyard
8 year old Ciaran Williamson from Glasgow died after a gravestone toppled on him last May
A heartbroken mum wept as she relived the harrowing moment she found her eight-year-old son dying in a graveyard.
Stephanie Griffin, 25, told a fatal accident inquiry Ciaran Williamson had only been allowed out to play for 10 minutes.
He gave his mum a kiss, told him he loved her and she watched him walk down the street to meet his friends.
Minutes later there was a chap at their door, yards from the cemetery at Moss Heights, by a friend to say Ciaran was hurt.
Step-dad Thomas McGee, 26, raced to the scene to find the schoolboy under a headstone in the cemetery.
He told the inquiry Ciaran was “lifeless” when he came across him.
Ciaran was playing with friends in Craigton Cemetery on May 26, last year, when the stone fell on him.
Miss Griffin and Mr McGee, as well as Ciaran’s dad, Ryan Williamson, 26, gave evidence at Glasgow Sheriff Court.
The inquiry is to establish if there were any reasonable precautions that could have prevented the tragedy.
And, to establish if there were any defects in the system of work which caused or contributed to Ciaran’s death.
A joint minute read to the court noted that a post-mortem revealed head and neck injuries and damage to the brain stem as a result of “immediate cardiac arrest”.
Miss Griffin, who clutched a teddy in the court room, described Ciaran as having “the biggest heart”.
She told the inquiry Ciaran was due to go on holiday days later with his gran and was going to her house that evening to try on holiday clothes.
But, he was allowed to go out and play with his friends until they were leaving and that was the last she spoke to him.
Fighting tears she said Ciaran asked to go out and play and she agreed telling him to stay at the front of the house.
She said: “Just as Ciaran was leaving he gave us all a kiss and shouted ‘love you’. Ciaran always done that.
“Then he went out and he shouted to me.
“I went to the veranda and he said ‘can I go down to the swing park that’s where the other boys are going?’
“I said ‘that’s fine you have got 10 minutes then I will come get you. That was him, I watched him walk along the street.”
She said her partner had been at the shops and when he came home he was no sooner in the door when Ciaran’s friend arrived.
Miss Griffin said: “I heard him saying something about ‘you need to come quick Ciaran is bleeding, he’s hurt himself’ so Thomas just flew out of the door.”
She told the inquiry: “I said to my mum ‘I bet he’s broken his leg and he’s not going to be able to get on his holiday’.
“Just as I said that I got this horrible feeling take over my whole body."
The mum-of-four said she ran to see what was wrong and came to a hole in the wall at the nearby cemetery.
Despite her partner asking her to stay away she barged in to see her son and found him on the ground.
Through tears she said: “I turned round and seen him lying on the floor and I knew as soon as I saw him that something really bad had happened.”
“Blood was coming out his ears and nose, he was just lying in this puddle all around him.”
“I tried to check for a pulse, checking his arm and his leg.
“I kept slapping his face like ‘come on Ciaran, come on Ciaran just get up.”
She said Mr McGee told her “when I got here that was on him”, referring to a gravestone.
The inquiry heard she “fell to the ground” and screamed and shouted then on instruction from the emergency services went to look out for the ambulance.
Miss Griffin said when paramedics arrived they took Ciaran away to Yorkhill Children's hospital.
Medics battled to save Ciaran but when Miss Griffin arrived at the hospital she was told there was nothing they could do.
Miss Griffin said she warned Ciaran not to play in the graveyard because it was dangerous and disrespectful.
She said she wasn’t aware of a hole in the wall of the cemetery until after the incident but has since learned nearby residents reported it as far back as eight years ago.
Mr McGee described when he got to Ciaran the gravestone was on top of his chest and he looked “lifeless”.
He said: “My first thought was to get the top bit off him because I didn’t want his mum to see him like that.”
Mr Williamson broke down and told the court: “Because someone couldn’t do their job properly he has been taken from me.”
He told the court that if the hole was covered then Ciaran wouldn’t have been in the graveyard and wouldn’t be dead.
The inquiry before sheriff Linda Ruxton continues.