A childcare nurse has recalled the horrifying moment she realised a baby boy “gagged” on his food before later dying in hospital.
Inquest jurors were today told of the harrowing moments when Oliver Steeper began choking while being fed at the Jelly Beans Day Nursery in Ashford.
Fighting back tears at the witness stand, Nazia Begum said much of the events on the day were a “blur” in her memory.
It also emerged that Ms Begum and several other staff members’ paediatric first aid training was out of date and was a source of concern among colleagues at the nursery.
Giving evidence, Ms Begum recalled she was sitting with four babies and fed Oliver cut-up penne bolognese.
She told the court: “[Oliver’s] food was already pretty finely chopped up, then I chopped it up more so they were a good size.
“I remember just giving him the little teaspoon of mince.
“He had inhaled a bit of mince.
“He gagged and gasped for two to three seconds, and then he gagged again and that’s when I realised something was wrong.”
Ms Begum said she then went into a state of shock.
Asked by co-workers to contact the emergency services, she said she was not able to bring herself to speak so another staff member called 999.
She went on to say that the nursery manager Debbie Alcock was alerted to the situation.
“Debbie ran out to the garden with Oliver in her arms, I think he was limp, she went and sat on a bench with him,” Ms Begum added.
“The paramedics were on the phone and Debbie got told to do breaths and said to me to check if his chest was rising - I can’t recall if it was or not.
“The paramedics arrived and took over straight away. Once they left with Oliver, I had a breakdown in the garden, I couldn’t move, I just wasn’t with it at all.”
During her evidence on Monday, Oliver’s mother Zoe Steeper said she had understood that her nine-month-old would only be given puréed food.
Mrs Steeper recalled an earlier conversation with staff and told them while he had some solid food such as finger snacks, the majority of his food was puréed because they knew he could not properly chew yet.
She said staff told her that would be fine “because they had a blender and that his main food would be puréed”.
But at the hearing at Oakwood House in Maidstone - which is into its third day of a two-week inquest - Ms Begum said she could not recall having a detailed conversation with Mrs Steeper about Oliver’s food.
“I didn’t really have a clear understanding of what he could have,” said the carer.
“I just remember having a general chat with Mrs Steeper but I don’t remember any specific information about what he could have.
“I usually had a general chat with all the parents, but if I wasn't the key person I wouldn’t go into too much detail because I knew that the kew person would do that.”
In a statement she had previously given to police, Ms Begum said: “I don’t know how long he had been on solid foods, but [Mrs Steeper] said he would be fine with them and that he should try new things.”
Oliver started choking and was unable to breathe while eating following the incident on September 23, 2021 - the day he returned to nursery after he had been sick the previous week.
Mrs Steeper told the court this week she had found chunks of pineapple and cherry in his sick the week before the incident.
But in an emotional testimony, she admitted she “didn’t want to rock the boat” by raising concerns with nursery staff on the morning of the incident before saying: “I wish now I had.”
It was revealed today Ms Begum’s paediatric first aid certificate was a year out of date and had not received any updated training in the two years she had worked there.
She confessed other staff were aware their training was due to be updated but it had not been brought up by management.
Ms Begum, who had not had to carry out first aid or CPR on a child at the nursery before, said: “The staff [at Jelly Beans] were fully aware if it was running out or out of date, I hadn’t had any more additional first aid training while I was there.
“I didn’t really take any notice as to whether [the paediatric first aid qualification] had run out or not. It was up to the managers to make sure of that stuff.
“But the manager would say we’d rather get the students and the newer staff trained first and then get the other staff trained afterwards.”
Oliver died six days later at the Evelina Children’s Hospital in London.
The hearing was told on Monday that Mrs Steeper said on September 16, her baby was “unusually grouchy” which she and Oliver’s dad, Lewis, had put down to him picking up his first bug.
“We assumed it was he was poorly,” said Mrs Steeper.
“That evening he was quite violently sick. In the sick there were whole chunks of pineapple.
“At first, we wondered how on earth he’d managed to eat them. I later realised that it must have been at the nursery.
“It said on the app that he’d been given fruit salad.
“We’d assumed that would have been pureed, obviously, when we realised it was coming out with bits of cherry and pineapple, it was clear that it hadn’t been pureed and we had a discussion and I said I was going to speak to the nursery the following week.
“My husband suggested I write an email. It seems silly now but I didn’t want to rock the boat, I didn’t want them to think I was being pushy.”
Bravely fighting back tears at times while giving evidence, Mrs Steeper recalled the morning she dropped off Oliver at nursery for the last time.
“I felt rushed because I knew that I was running late,” she said.
“We came out to the nursery when I got there, the lady I gave him to seemed quite stressed and busy.
“She didn’t rush me away but she kind of turned away and said okay, thank you.
“I didn’t feel able that I could call her back and ask her about the pineapple. I wish now I had.”
‘I didn’t feel able that I could call her back and ask her about the pineapple. I wish now I had.’
The inquest is set to hear evidence from nursery school staff including two chefs.
Oliver’s parents have previously stated they believe there were “missed opportunities” in the way the incident was handled which could have saved their son’s life.
The coroner and jurors will hear from multiple witnesses over the course of the hearing which is scheduled end next Friday.
The Steepers have spoken openly about their experience of losing a child and have since had another son, Jake, in January 2023.
Speaking about their youngest boy later in the year, Mr Steeper said: “Initially when Oliver died it was hole in the house that we couldn’t fill.
“Now we’ve had Jake and he’s nine-months-old so he’s kind of filled that gap but Jake’s a spitting image of Oliver so it’s a constant reminder every day of Oliver not being there but we’re grateful that we’ve got Jake to continue our family.”
Following Oliver’s death, Ofsted closed Jelly Beans, in Field View, on a temporary basis pending a full investigation into “serious safeguarding concerns” in the lead-up to the incident.
However, parents and carers were later informed the owner of the nursery had voluntarily shut the facility down.
At the inquest opening in 2022, Oliver’s cause of death was given as a brain injury and cardio-respiratory arrest following "aspiration of foodstuffs during a choking episode".
In February 2023, a police investigation into the circumstances of the tragedy, which had been launched more than a year earlier, was closed.
