Mother suing government over daughter’s pollution-linked death

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

The mother of a nine-year-old girl who died from asthma induced by pollution says she wants an official apology over her daughter’s suffering as her High Court claim against the Government heads to trial.

Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, from south-east London, suffered a fatal asthma attack in February 2013 after being exposed to excessive air pollution.

In a landmark coroner’s case in 2020, she became first person to have air pollution listed as a cause of death at an inquest in the UK.

It marked the culmination of a long battle by Ella’s mother, Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, to have the role of air pollution in her daughter’s death recognised.

Her late daughter’s estate, over which Ms Adoo-Kissi-Debrah acts as administrator, is now suing three Government departments for compensation over Ella’s “illness and premature death”.

Her lawyers estimate the case to be worth £293,156 in potential damages, but the Government, which opposes the claim, believes it is worth £30,000 if successful.

At a preliminary hearing in London on Monday, lawyers discussed issues in the case ahead of an estimated 10-day trial at a later date.

Speaking to the PA news agency afterwards, Ms Adoo-Kissi-Debrah said her legal challenge against ministers would be about “holding their feet to the fire” and establishing a “legal right to clean air”.

She said she wanted “an apology, first and foremost … for what Ella went through”.

“We got it from the London mayor, we expect the same from the Government,” she said.

Her daughter “suffered greatly”, Ms Adoo-Kissi-Debrah said, adding that the family’s former lawyer and new attorney general Richard Hermer KC, had “equated Ella’s suffering to torture”.

Ella lived 25 metres from the South Circular Road in Lewisham, south-east London – one of the capital’s busiest roads.

She died after having endured numerous seizures and made almost 30 hospital visits over the previous three years.

Speaking the day after the Euro 2024 final, Ms Adoo-Kissi-Debrah said of her daughter: “Yesterday we thought about how much she would have enjoyed the football.

“It’s very sad how much she has genuinely missed out on, it was a life truly cut short. That will never go away.”

She claimed “not a lot has much happened” since a coroner’s prevention of future deaths report, which she said had warned that “unless the Government clean up the air, children like Ella are going to continue to die”.

Ms Adoo-Kissi-Debrah noted the outgoing Tory government’s target of cutting exposure to harmful air pollutants by 2040, but added: “A child born today would not get clean air until they are 16, which is a long way off”.

She said it was difficult to comment on the new government’s approach after only about a week in office, but said there was “disappointment” over the lack of a clean air act in Labour’s election manifesto.

“We were told that a clean air act was going to be in a manifesto. There was nothing in the manifesto,” she said.

Ms Adoo-Kissi-Debrah said a change in the law was needed, adding: “You can be the best campaigner in the world but unless you have legislation I don’t think it’s going to amount to much.”

She called on government departments to work together and to look at the coroner’s report and evidence collated during the Covid pandemic about the impact of air pollution.

“It’s high time we had a public health campaign about the impact of air pollution on health,” she said.

Ms Adoo-Kissi-Debrah’s lawyers previously told the court that the personal injury case – “the first claim of its kind” – is “not about money”, but focused on “seeking vindication for the death of Ella”.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Department for Transport, and the Department of Health and Social Care are disputing the claim.

Government lawyers previously denied its actions “amount to a breach of human rights” and denied that any such alleged breach, if proven, would be “causative of Ella’s injuries and death”.

A government spokesperson said: “Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah’s death was a tragedy and our thoughts remain with her friends and family.”

On Monday, Judge David Cook made case management orders over the future of the early-stage legal action.