Christianne and Robert Shepherd (known as Christi and Bobby, respectively) were an English sister and brother from Horbury, West Yorkshire who died of carbon monoxide poisoning while on holiday in Corfu in October 2006.
Three people, including the manager of the hotel where they were staying, were found guilty of manslaughter by negligence following a criminal trial in Greece in 2010 and were each sentenced to seven years in prison.
The jury at the inquest into Christi and Bobby's deaths, which was held at Wakefield Coroner's Court in 2015, returned a verdict of unlawful killing and concluded that travel group Thomas Cook had "breached its duty of care".
[3][4] Forty-eight hours after arriving, Beatson and the children started to feel unwell, with Bobby stumbling and appearing dizzy.
[5] Neil Shepherd and his girlfriend Ruth Beatson, together with the children's mother Sharon Wood and her husband Paul, campaigned in Corfu to secure a local police investigation and trial.
The three trial judges heard evidence from Harry Rogers, a mechanical engineer, who said the installation of the 'decrepit' boiler responsible for the deaths was the worst he had seen in 50 years.
He told the court that the leak had been caused by a wired-out gas valve, a bypassed thermostat, the lack of a flue and chimney, and a gap between the bungalow and the outhouse containing the boiler.
They included the hotel's manager, Georgios Chrysikopoulos, the head of its technical department, Petros Stoyiannos, and its electrician, Christos Louvros.
[8] Following the conclusion of the Greek trial, the parents of Christi and Bobby were refused legal aid from England and Wales to pay for their representation at the inquest into the deaths, on the grounds that lawyers are not usually required.
In a statement afterwards, Vara said: "This is a very tragic case in which two young children lost their lives and my deepest sympathies are with the family, with whom the prime minister and I recently met.
"[4] Shepherd welcomed the news, saying: "We are now in a position to be able to concentrate on getting the full facts of Christi and Bobby's deaths out in the public without the added worry of cost."
[5] Heating engineer Harry Rogers told the inquest that the faulty boiler responsible for the children's deaths would have been shut down immediately if it had been inspected in the UK.
"[3] A second expert, Thomas Magner, described the installation work as having been "botched and bodged" and said that a safety cut-off device had been deliberately short-circuited to prevent it turning off.
The short-circuiting appeared to have been carried out the day before the children died, in response to a complaint from another family about a lack of hot water in their bungalow.
Jordison's husband David, also a Thomas Cook holiday representative, also declined to answer when the family's barrister asked him: "You knew there was gas there, because you had been there for a whole season, didn't you?"
[12] The current Thomas Cook Group's chief executive officer Peter Fankhauser, told the inquest: "I feel incredibly sorry for the family—incredibly sorry.
"[1] However, the company issued a statement in which it insisted that although it was "shocked and deeply saddened by the tragic loss", it was not at fault, citing the acquittal of its employees in the 2010 Greek trial.
In late 2012, we brought a claim against the hotelier for breaching their contract to provide safe accommodation to our customers and to comply with all applicable laws, which was decided in our favour.
[14] A former managing director of Thomas Cook's international business and former chairman of the Association of British Travel Agents, John McEwan, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I think they should have consulted the family.
"[14] In The Independent Joanna Bourke wrote: "Nothing Thomas Cook could ever do would bring back the two children killed by carbon monoxide poisoning on a Greek holiday in 2006.
[15] On 20 May 2015, Fankhauser told the BBC he was "deeply sorry" for the deaths of Christi and Bobby, saying: "It is clear that there are things that we as a company could have done better in the past nine years.
Afterwards it was announced that Thomas Cook was to make an undisclosed "financial gesture of goodwill" to them, and Fankhauser said: "I am so grateful for the opportunity to meet and listen to Sharon Wood and Neil Shepherd.
[18][19] In November 2015, the results of an independent review of Thomas Cook's crisis management procedures and the company's customer health and safety strategy were published.
Written by Justin King, a former chief executive of UK supermarket chain Sainsbury's, the review's report was critical of the way that the company had dealt with the children's family, saying that its responses had been "intermittent, sometimes ill-timed and often ill-judged.
Chief executive Peter Fankhauser said the review would "serve as a catalyst" for the changes the company was already making, adding that, "It took us nine years to correct the mistakes of the past and to do what everyone would have expected of us; treat the family with the respect and empathy they deserve.