Cooper Onyett died on school camp in Victoria: New details emerge

A primary school knew an eight-year-old student was a weak swimmer but failed to notify an aquatics center before the boy drowned at camp.

Year 2 student Cooper Onyett drowned at Belfast Aquatics in Port Fairy in south-west Victoria on May 21, 2021, during a trip organized by Merrivale Primary School in Warrnambool.

The school sent parents permission slips and medical forms before the trip, asking how far their children could swim.

Cooper’s mother ticked a box and confirmed he is a novice swimmer with little or no experience in shallow water, prosecutor Duncan Chisholm told the County Court of Victoria in Warrnambool on Thursday.

However, the school never passed on information about students’ swimming skills to the pool before sending 28 young students there.

Cooper (pictured) was identified by his mother as a weak swimmer, but was spotted outside the shallow end of the center twice

The second-graders were asked to raise their hands if they could swim when they arrived at the aquatic center, Chisholm said.

Children who said they could swim were led to an inflatable obstacle course in the deep end of the pool, but many were eventually identified as weak swimmers and helped to the shallow end, he said.

Cooper was one of the children identified as a weak swimmer and was spotted outside the shallow area twice more: he jumped into the deep end and onto the bouncy castle, from which he was told to get off.

A swimmer with her daughter later saw the boy floating underwater and initially thought he was holding his breath.

“After about 40 seconds, she realized something was wrong,” Chisholm said.

Cooper died after attempts to revive him at the pool failed.

Victoria’s education department has pleaded guilty to breaching health and safety law after Cooper’s death and admitted it failed to ensure people other than workers were not exposed to risks.

“If information about the children’s swimming skills had been passed on to Belfast it could have reduced the risk of drowning,” Chisholm said.

During Thursday’s plea hearing, Judge Claire Quin repeatedly asked government attorney Carmen Currie why the school collected information about the children’s swimming ability if it did not disclose it to the pool.

Currie said the information was collected for planning purposes, and the department could not “anticipate in each individual case the exact information a provider might need” for a school activity.

It was poolside to request the information, the attorney said.

“The activity was swimming,” Judge Quin said.

“Why would you get that information if you’re not going to give it to the people who need it?”

Chisholm said the department relied on someone else to fulfill its own obligation when it placed the responsibility on the aquatic center to ask about students’ swimming skills.

“When they drop kids off, they don’t just throw them off the bus and say, ‘You’re right,’” he said.

Currie said the department has since made it mandatory for schools to tell swimming pools about their students’ swimming skills.

Victoria’s education department has pleaded guilty to breaching health and safety law following Cooper’s death

However, she said there was no evidence that disclosing the children’s swimming skills would have changed the way Belfast Aquatics managed the activity on May 21.

Port Fairy Community Pool Management has also admitted breaching health and safety legislation.”

Judge Quin is expected to sentence both the department and pool management on May 31.