THE mother took her eyes off her toddler for a second. But it was enough time for the two-year-old boy to wander away, fall into a swimming pool and drown.

Now, in what is believed to be a nationwide first, Philip John Cameron, 61, has been charged with manslaughter because he did not adequately fence his pool.

Philip Cameron ... charged over toddler's death.

Mr Cameron was inside his Armidale home watching television one afternoon this year when the boy wandered through his backyard and fell in the pool.

Mr Cameron's unkempt pool, described by one neighbour as ''a bit of a cesspit'', had a fence around it that was dilapidated.