A 12-year-old British boy who died after falling from the balcony of a Spanish apartment block has been named as Lucas Briscoe.

The schoolboy, from Lostock Gralam in Cheshire, was on holiday with his mother Nicola Marshall and a friend in the Costa del Sol resort of Fuengirola when he fell on Tuesday afternoon.

Police said the death was being treated as an accident.

The group had been at the end of a two-week holiday when the boy fell from a holiday apartment owned by Lucas’s father Gary Briscoe, who is Marshall’s former husband.

Lucas, whom initial reports had incorrectly said was 13, was a talented singer and rugby player, and had been due to audition for the ITV talent show The Voice.

His mother said: “I can’t believe he’s gone. He was my world. Please grab your child and cuddle them today and tell them how much you love them, because they’re precious and you never know when tomorrow will never come.

“From the moment I held my baby boy in my arms, to the young man he had become, my proudest moments were telling people he was mine.”

Marshall said she had been making lunch and nagging the boys to help clean when Lucas fell.

“What should have been the final day of an amazing holiday ended up being the worst day of my life. I lost my world, my everything, when Lucas went over the balcony. A fall, a jump, a slip, a moment of silliness, boyish behaviour, annoyed at his mum for nagging him over hoovering.

“I will never know, but what I do know one million per cent is that if Lucas had truly known the repercussions of climbing over, he wouldn’t have wanted that. He wouldn’t have wanted to leave this world. Not yet.”

Briscoe said his son was “funny, outgoing, sociable” and was “going to leave a big hole in a lot of lives”.

“He packed so much into his 12 years and lived it to the full,” he said. “No one expects to say goodbye to a child and not in circumstances like this. We are devastated at losing our precious, vibrant and loving son.”

A spokesman for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said: “We are offering support to the family of a British child who has died in Fuengirola. Our thoughts are with them at this very difficult time and Foreign Office staff are in contact with the Spanish police.”