An eight-year-old boy drowned after a lifeguard stopped watching swimmers to chat to a customer, a court heard.
Kelly Woods, 31, had been talking for up to 15 minutes when Suraj Mall got into difficulty.
When she turned back to watch the swimming pool, the youngster was found floating face down.
Suraj Mall was found in the pool after his mother had taken him and his siblings swimming
Woods, who is charged with failing to properly supervise pool users, dived in to try to save him, but the schoolboy had already been submerged for almost two minutes. Despite attempts to revive him, Suraj was pronounced dead in hospital.
Lifeguard Kelly Woods is accused of failing to properly supervise pool users
‘She was at work and got talking to a customer while she was on duty,’ James Puzey, prosecuting, told the court. ‘A few minutes later a boy – Suraj Mall – was found floating face down in the water.’
The youngster’s mother, who had taken Suraj and his three siblings to the pool, broke down in the witness stand as she recalled the tragedy which happened in February 2008.
Lajla Kaur, 35, went for a brief induction at the centre’s gym and returned to see her four children in the pool’s shallow end through a glass window. She then went to get change for a locker and on returning couldn’t see her son.
She said: ‘Suraj wasn’t there and I kind of panicked.
‘When I got the children’s attention they couldn’t hear me through the glass. When they did finally understand they pointed towards the changing room.
‘Then I heard the alarm and people were coming out of the pool.’
Wolverhampton Swimming and Fitness Centre lifeguard Natalie Emery, 24, told jurors that conversations with customers of more than two minutes were not permissible.
Wolverhampton Swimming and Fitness Centre in Wolverhampton, where the schoolboy drowned
Jurors heard that five lifeguards were on duty that day, and from the man Woods was talking to, Barry King
Lifeguards took half-hour shifts overseeing one area of the centre and the most recent changeover had occurred at 4.30pm – 19 minutes before a 999 call was made about the drowning.
Miss Emery said: ‘I noticed Kelly was talking to a gentleman. It was for between ten and 15 minutes.’
But customer Barry King said he and Woods, from Tettenhall Wood, West Midlands, were talking for just ‘a couple of minutes’.
He said he went over to chat to Woods about a previous incident in which he had been told the shorts he wore were too long to swim in.
He added: ‘She was concentrating on her job and I don’t think I distracted her.’
Mr Puzey told Wolverhampton Crown Court: ‘This defendant was a lifeguard and her job was to look after people who came to swim at the public pool.
‘Customers are at risk if the lifeguard allows themselves to become distracted. It is fundamental to what they do that their whole attention must be focused on the pool.’
The case continues.