The parents of Weybridge pupil Zane Gbangbola are being denied legal aid in their fight to prove their son died from toxic gases from a former landfill site.

They have argued since their son's death that floodwaters which entered their home two years ago were poisonous.

From December 8: "Very high" reading of toxic gas found in home of Zane Gbangbola fuels theories he may have died from hydrogen cyanide poisoning

From October 7: Truth about Zane? Campaigners claim Weybridge schoolboy Zane Gbangbola's death is being covered up by council​

From October 5: Family of 7-year-old who died in last year's flood will not get a special inquest into his death rules coroner

Seven-year-old Zane, a pupil at St George’s Junior School in Weybridge, suffered a cardiac arrest at the family home in Chertsey after floodwaters entered the basement in 2014.

His family has always maintained that poisonous gas, namely hydrogen cyanide, from a nearby former landfill site, was the cause of their son’s death.

Zane’s father, Kye, 50, also lost the use of his legs after the flooding, which he attributes to hydrogen cyanide poisoning.

Despite postmortem examination results showing Zane died from carbon monoxide poisoning, a pre-inquest review revealed in December that a gas reading taken in the upstairs bedroom of the Gbangbola home by firefighters read 25,000 parts per million of hydrogen cyanide.

The family’s lawyer, Leslie Thomas QC, said at the time that the “very high reading” was being revealed for the first time, after a previous pre-inquest review said only 10 parts per million of hydrogen cyanide was found in the family’s home.

Now, after their two-year battle to prove their son was killed by the toxic gas, his parents are facing having to represent themselves after being denied £70,000 of legal aid by the Legal Aid Agency, according to the Mail on Sunday.

Zane’s mother Nicole, 37, told the paper: “How are we supposed to argue against five barristers who have 160 years of legal experience between them? It will be hard enough just to turn up to the hearings each day, let alone represent ourselves.

“We are not lawyers, we are not barristers, we are just normal people.”

Mr Gbangbola added: “All we want is to end this nightmare we are having to endure.

“I believe the powers that be don’t want the truth. They just want to silence us.”

The Legal Aid Agency said the Gbangbola family’s application for “exceptional case funding” had been declined because it did not meet its public interest tests.

After a coroner’s hearing last autumn a spokeswoman from Spelthorne Council denied any wrongdoing on its part.

She said: “Whilst we have the utmost sympathy for the family’s ongoing anguish, we have always maintained that there is no evidence of a link between the landfill and this tragedy, or of a public health risk.”

Zane was described by St George’s headteacher Anthony Hudson as a “larger than life character” in February 2014.

Mr Hudson added: “He was probably the best known pupil from the lower years among the upper years’ children due not only to his lovely shock of curls which made him visibly stand out, but far more importantly because he was a passionate member of the green committee – a cause he had clearly inherited from his parents.”

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