Mum calls for water safety classes after son's death

"If Joe survived he would want people to know the dangers," Vanessa Abbess said

The mother of one of the two children who drowned off Bournemouth beach has called for water safety to be taught in classrooms.

Vanessa Abbess's 17-year-old son Joe died on the same day as 12-year-old Sunnah Khan in May 2023.

Earlier Mrs Abbess listened to a backbench debate led by Southampton Itchen's Labour MP Darren Paffey about water safety.

The Minister for School Standards Catherine McKinnell said the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill "will once implemented extend the requirement to teach swimming and water safety to all state-funded schools".

"We will never know what water safety advice Joe knew," Mrs Abbess told the BBC.

Joe Abbess died at Bournemouth Beach on the same day as 12-year-old Sunnah Khan

Joe, from Southampton, and Sunnah, from High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, were dragged out to sea by a rip current that witnesses described as going "from zero to absolute chaos with no warning".

Eight other people were rescued by paramedics, and Mrs Abbess said she did not know that rip currents "were a thing around the British coast."

"They are ferocious and they are dangerous and people need to be aware," she added.

Water safety is only a mandatory part of the curriculum for PE at primary school, something Mrs Abbess said she wanted to see widened ahead of the parliamentary debate.

She said if Joe had survived he would want to tell people about water dangers.

"If this can get into schools through education and on the national curriculum for all children in England that will feel like something in Joe's name, in Sunnah's name, in the other children that have died," she said.

"Ultimately, it will be a glimmer of hope for those bereaved families in the darkness."

Speaking before the debate, Mr Paffey said Scotland and Wales had a minister with responsibility for water safety.

"I'm asking the government to appoint one for England too," he added.

Mr Paffey is also calling on government to develop a National Swimming and Water Safety Strategy