Oliver Steeper was nine months old when he was fed a chopped-up meal by staff at the Jelly Beans Day Nursery in Kent on September 23 2021 – that same meal would be the meal that kills him
The parents of a baby who died after choking on pasta bolognese at a nursery have described reaching a six-figure settlement with the childcare centre as “the end of a long road”.
Oliver Steeper was nine months old when he was fed a chopped-up meal by staff at the Jelly Beans Day Nursery in Kent on 23 September 2021. After choking and falling unconscious, he was rushed to William Harvey Hospital in Ashford and later transferred to an intensive care unit at the Evelina London Children’s Hospital, where medics discovered food lodged in his lungs.
He had suffered a catastrophic brain injury due to oxygen deprivation and died six days later. Oliver’s parents Zoe and Lewis Steeper said they had not yet begun weaning him onto solid food and that he wasn’t ready for it.
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Represented by law firm Leigh Day, they have now reached a settlement with the nursery for an undisclosed six-figure sum.The Jelly Beans Day Nursery, which has since closed down, reached the settlement without admitting liability.
Speaking to the PA news agency, Mr and Mrs Steeper said their legal and campaigning efforts were “never about the money” but “accountability”.
Since their son’s death, they have campaigned for improved standards in first aid training for childcare professionals and established a charity that provides anti-choking devices to nurseries across the UK. During an inquest last year, coroner Katrina Hepburn was presented with evidence showing that the “level of first aid provided by the nursery staff was overall of a poor standard”.
She contacted the Government, warning that the standard practice at the time of having just one first-aider per nursery could “pose a risk to future life”.
Ministers responded by introducing reforms which took effect in September, requiring at least one staff member in the room to hold a valid paediatric first-aid certificate whilst children are eating.
Mrs Steeper described the reforms as “surreal” and “bittersweet” to witness, “because Oli had to die”. She added: “I feel like if it hadn’t been Oli, it would have been another child. We hear stories about children who are still dying from choking in childcare settings so I still think there is a long way to go but whenever we hear it, it is comforting to know that underneath it all is Oli.”
She remembered her son as a “very cheeky, cheerful” boy who “was happy all the time” and said the memory of the choking incident is now “all one big blur”. Describing his arrival at the London hospital, Mr Steeper said: “It was like a scene out of The Matrix where you’re frozen in time and all the doctors are doing 200mph all around you.
“Then this one lady stepped out of the cloud of people and said, ‘You need to prepare yourself, he’s not going to survive’, at which point our world just fell apart because we had hope all the way until that point.”
He went on to say: “We didn’t even get a decision to make, because the damage was so bad, due to the time he was without oxygen.” Mr Steeper also revealed that after Oliver’s tragic passing, he and his wife agreed to organ donation without any second thoughts, later discovering that his kidneys had been given to a 60 year old bloke.
He expressed: “What an amazing thing that is, to know he’s gotten someone off dialysis and given someone a life.”
Their charity, the Oliver Steeper Foundation, now raises funds for the distribution of a device called a LifeVac, which operates similarly to a plunger and can remove objects from the throat of a child or adult if something gets lodged.
The couple shared that they have already used it on their second child after he started choking on Calpol. Mrs Steeper commented: “It’s very humbling when people come up to you at a summer fete and you might get a little kid that puts a pound in the bucket and the next thing someone gives you a £20 note. It’s mind-blowing.”
She added: “Generally, we have been overawed by how many people have come out and supported us, especially with the way things are with the cost of living. That’s the biggest thing that has come out of all of this, the whole process has changed us as people.”
