'I was at his birth and at his death': Grandmother of tragic Walsall five-year-old speaks at inquest into his death

The grandmother of five year old Joshua Lee Allcock from Walsall spoke with emotion on the first day of the re-opened inquest into his death.

Sara Marple spoke at the Black Country Coroners Court in Oldbury, talking of her devastation at her grandson's death, at Birmingham Children's Hospital on January 3, 2023.

Joshua was being cared for by foster parents over the Christmas period before his grandmother Sara Marple and mother Gemma Alcock and raised 'grave concerns' over his health and well being after a series of family visits in which his 'eyes were sunken and his skin 'thin and gaunt.'

He was taken to Walsall Manor Hospital on Christmas day before later being transferred to Birmingham Children's Hospital where he was said to have a bleed on the brain and died three days later.

The inquest heard his mother Gemma was a cocaine user and that Joshua was autistic and non verbal and had complex developmental and emotional needs. but for the early years of his life the family had coped with his care between them