Seeking justice over son's death
Feb 6 2008 by Rebekah Ashby, The Journal
THE mother of a County Durham holidaymaker who died after falling from a hotel balcony has urged a Greek court to allow her the chance to grieve properly.
Pam Cummings’s son Christopher Rochester, 24, from Chester-le-Street, died in excruciating pain at Rhodes’s Andreas Papandreou Hospital after being left unattended on a hospital trolley for three hours.
Mrs Cummings and husband George – Christopher’s stepfather – were in Greece attending the retrial of three doctors accused of their son’s manslaughter.
They have fought a long campaign to get justice for their son, which has seen the original conviction overturned in the Appeal Court and the Supreme Court order a re-trial.
Christopher fell 40ft from a Faliraki hotel balcony while on holiday with his older brother Keith and friends at the popular tourist resort in June 2000.
Mrs Cummings told the three judges at the trial on the island of Rhodes: “I am standing here, coming to Greece for the sixth time to see justice upheld for the death of my son.
“On Sunday June 11, 2000 at 7am I received a phone call from my eldest son Keith informing me of Chris’s death.
“He told me Chris had had an accident and was taken to hospital: ‘Mam, they did nothing for him, Mam, they did nothing for him’.
“Almost immediately, through my shock and grief, I understood something terrible had happened.”
In 2002, Stergios Pavlidis, Georgos Karavolias and Mihalis Sokorelos were convicted by a Greek court of manslaughter by neglect and sentenced to three years imprisonment.
Their sentences were deferred until after they appealed.
But three years later they successfully appealed against the conviction. Mr and Mrs Cummings immediately challenged the ruling and the Greek Supreme Court ordered a re-trial.
The trial continues.
