Farm vigilance urged after child’s death

A coroner has highlighted the need for extreme vigilance on farms after an inquest heard how a toddler died in a farmyard accident in West Cork last year.

Ben Regan, who was just 23 months old, suffered fatal injuries when a heavy steel horse-box divider fell on him as he went to feed hens with his grandmother on her farm on the Mizen Peninsula on May 23, 2015.

The jury at Cork City Coroner’s Court, which heard heartbreaking eye-witness evidence of the incident, returned a unanimous verdict of accidental death.