When a child dies, anger, confusion and sadness are normal reactions. But there is an expectation for the family to get justice. But for black children, this does not appear to be the case.

Christopher Kapessa was a 13-year-old boy who died after being pushed into the River Cynon in South Wales in 2019. Initially, the Welsh police labelled the incident an accident as Jayden Pugh, the boy who pushed Christopher, said he had fallen.

The 14-year-old was later found to have unlawfully killed Christopher Kapessa, however, the coroner, David Regan, told the inquest: “The push was a dangerous prank. However, the child responsible did not intend to cause Christophe’'s death and himself jumped into the water, with other children, as an unsuccessful attempt at rescue.”

Children make mistakes and do stupid things all the time – I certainly did at fourteen – but never to someone’s death. A foolish prank is not something that should result in a child’s death. Labelling it as such reduces the anguish and tragedy of the avoidable death of a child to something merely unfortunate; an act of nature almost.