British family seeks UK govt support for father to attend son’s funeral

The family of a British father facing prosecution over the death of his three-year-old son is seeking support from the UK government to allow him to return to Britain for the child’s funeral, according to media reports. The father, 37, who has been charged with causing death by a rash, reckless or dangerous act, is currently on bail and prohibited from leaving Cyprus pending a court hearing on July 31. According to media reports, the family hopes the UK’s foreign secretary Ed Miliband will engage with Cypriot authorities on humanitarian grounds to enable the father to attend the funeral after next week’s court proceedings. The boy died on July 12 after falling from a fourth-floor window at a luxury hotel in Chlorakas, near Paphos, on the first day of the family’s holiday. Police have said the child fell while playing with his father in a corridor outside the family’s room as they were waiting for a lift. Investigators believe the boy slipped from his father’s grip and fell through an open window. The father was arrested later that evening and initially remanded in custody for eight days before being released on €20,000 bail. Under his bail conditions, he was ordered to surrender all travel documents, report weekly to Paphos central police station and remain in Cyprus pending trial proceedings. Paphos police assistant operations director Michalis Nikolaou told the Cyprus Mail that “a quantity of alcohol” had been found in the man’s blood during testing, and that “this fact will be evaluated by the court which will hear the case”. High-profile criminal lawyer Christos Triantafyllides stated that “in 46 years as a lawyer, I have never seen anything like this”, and described the earlier lenghty remand decision as a “major mistake”. Whether all relevant safety requirements at the hotel had been met is also being looked into.