The mother of teenager Charlotte Shaw, who died while training for the Ten Tors challenge in 2007, has lost her £350,000 compensation claim.
The ruling, by three Appeal Court judges yesterday, will be a bitter blow to Jennifer Wilkin-Shaw, who has waged a five-year court battle against the North Devon school Charlotte was attending at the time she died.
The 14-year-old was swept to her death during training for the expedition in March 2007 as she struggled to help a friend while crossing a rain-swollen brook on Dartmoor.
In rejecting the claim against Kingsley School Bideford Trustee Co Ltd – formerly known as Edgehill College Enterprises Ltd – the three judges ruled that, although one of the teachers on the expedition had failed to make it to a checkpoint due to her "negligent" map-reading, that alone had not caused the tragedy.
Instead, the court ruled that the death was the result of the "well-meant and ill-advised intervention" of scoutmaster Trevor Wills, who advised the children participating in the Ten Tors training to cross Walla Brook, after they encountered him on that fateful day.
