Doctor says milk evidence may have revealed what caused Benedict Blythe’s fatal allergic reaction at Barnack Primary School

A leading allergy and asthma specialist says evidence that could have helped determine how a young boy died was thrown away.

Dr Shuaib Nasser, an NHS consultant with 30 years’ experience in his field, expressed his view at the inquest of Benedict Blythe, a five-year old boy who suffered a severe allergic reaction at school and died in hospital two hours later.

Having seen footage from a police officer’s body-worn camera that showed a bowl of vomit on a table in the reception classroom of Barnack Primary School, Dr Nasser expressed frustration that it had not been preserved as evidence to test for the presence of cows’ milk.

Benedict, who lived in Stamford and was a pupil at the school from September 2020 until his death on December 1, 2021, was severely allergic to cow’s milk and during morning breaktime each day he was given oat milk brought in from home.

In evidence heard at the inquest earlier this week, staff at Barnack Primary School said Benedict was handed his oat milk in his own cup by his teacher, but that he had not drunk it and tipped it away.

He was then sick twice before collapsing, at which point a teaching assistant administered two doses of adrenaline into his leg using an auto-injector pen and began CPR because he was not breathing.

Evidence seen by the inquest jury at Peterborough Town Hall today (Thursday, July 3) included another video clip from a police body-worn camera, captured in the playground while Benedict was being given CPR inside the classroom.

Jenny Brass, Benedict’s teacher, can be heard telling the police officer: “He didn’t really touch much of the milk”.

Responding to the video, Dr Nasser said: “The information I had received was that he had not drunk any of it. If he had drunk some of it, this new evidence raises the question of whether or not it contained cows’ milk.”

Before joining Barnack Primary School, the inquest heard, Benedict had been given a bowl of cereal with cow’s milk by accident, and after eating one spoonful suffered a severe allergic reaction. This was captured on the nursery school’s CCTV.

Dr Nasser expressed irritation that on the day of Benedict’s death, neither the bowl of his vomit nor the cup he had drunk from had been retained for testing, which could have helped ascertain if cows’ milk were present.

The allergy expert described the lack of evidence preservation as “a recurring theme in these inquests”.

He dismissed Benedict’s breakfast on the morning of his death as having caused his reaction because he had consumed it three hours earlier - a food-induced allergic reaction would have happened more rapidly.

He also said another child eating or drinking near Benedict was unlikely to have caused such a severe reaction.

Given Benedict’s medical history, and that his previous episodes of severe allergic reaction and anaphylaxis were caused by dairy products, Dr Nasser described cows’ milk as ‘a prime suspect’.

Evidence from McVitie’s biscuits, heard by the inquest jury yesterday, ruled out the possibility of Benedict’s breaktime snack having contained allergens.

Dr Nasser pointed out that because Benedict had received four courses of steroid medication for his asthma in the four months before he died, the illness was not being controlled well enough.

A consultant paediatrician familiar with Benedict had recommended in the autumn of 2021 that his asthma medication was ‘stepped up’, and Dr Nasser agreed this should have been carried out. But an asthma specialist at Peterborough’s hospital had decided not to, the inquest heard.

Dr Nasser was also asked if he felt school staff had responded appropriately on the day of Benedict’s death, and if they had administered the adrenaline auto-injector too late.

“In hindsight the answer is yes, it was administered too late,” he said, before posing a hypothetical question to point out adrenaline is no guarantee of saving someone from anaphylaxis.

“If it were administered immediately and he had still died, would that have been too late?,” he said.

Dr Nasser explained that because Benedict was initially displaying only one symptom of an allergic reaction - he had vomited - a normal course of action would not include the immediate injection of adrenaline.

“If you ate something and became covered in a rash and started swelling up, you would think it’s an allergic reaction,” he said.

“But if you start vomiting, that can be caused by a number of factors."

He reminded the jury that school staff are not medical professionals, and used other people’s evidence to create an approximate 13-minute timeframe, between about 10.25am when Benedict first vomited and 10.38am when the second dose of adrenaline was administered and 999 was called.

Evidence from Benedict’s mother Helen and father Pete was heard at the start of the two-week inquest hearing. His class teacher is due to give evidence tomorrow and the inquest is expected to continue until next Friday (July 11).

The purpose of the inquest is to publicly investigate the circumstances surrounding Benedict’s death and how he died, but not to apportion blame.