A 12-year-old boy was killed while riding an electric scooter after asking a friend aged 14 to unlock it using an app transferred from an adult’s phone, an inquest has heard.
Mustafa Nadeem fell into the path of a slow-moving bus after colliding with a pedestrian while riding a Voi e-scooter on a pavement in Bordesley Green, Birmingham, shortly before 8am on 6 December last year.
An inquest at the city’s coroner’s court was told the e-scooter could only be ridden legally by those aged 18 and over with a driving licence, but that schoolchildren had been seen riding the machines locally even after Mustafa’s death.
Birmingham area coroner James Bennett was told Mustafa’s friend, who cannot be named because of a court order, used an under-16’s bank account to hire the e-scooter, which had a top speed of 15mph.
The hearing was told the teenager also moved a Voi app account from an adult’s phone to their own, using a verification code received on the original handset.
Recording a finding that Mustafa died as a consequence of a road traffic collision, Mr Bennett said the death could rightly be described as an accident.
The coroner said he also planned to send a prevention of future deaths report to the Secretary of State for TransportMark Harper and the West Midlands mayor Andy Street, to raise the issue of e-scooter providers having no method of checking if a child’s card was used for payment.
Collision investigator Detective Sergeant Paul Hughes told Thursday’s inquest that CCTV from the bus and two nearby premises made it clear that the vehicle had stopped to drop off a passenger who Mustafa collided with near a pedestrian crossing.
Mr Hughes told the court: “The CCTV evidence was reviewed by myself and a forensic collision investigator.
“Both the bus and the e-scooter were well below the speed limit.”
Asked why the 14-year-old had not faced charges for permitting someone to use a motor vehicle without a licence or insurance, Mr Hughes answered: “In this case, it was my decision that to prosecute those offences criminally was not in the public interest.”
Mustafa, who was riding a Voi e-scooter available to the public as part of a Department for Transport-approved trial, died of multiple injuries at the scene near the junction of Belchers Lane and Bordesley Green.
The inquest was told Mustafa, who was on his way to school, was breaking the law by riding on the pavement.
His parents were accompanied to the hearing by his uncle, Anis Ali, who questioned why facial recognition technology was not used to ensure that each trip on an e-scooter was made by an adult account holder.
Mr Ali said of facial recognition before each journey: “It’s something that’s pretty simple and basic.
“On each ride it would be just a click of a button on the app. That could possibly save lives.”
Voi’s regional general manager for the UK, Jack Samler, told the hearing that facial recognition checks before each journey would be impractical and would require significant subsidies to be paid to e-scooter operators.
Mr Samler told the coroner that Voi, the largest UK e-scooter provider, carried out cross-checks of driving licence photos with a selfie provided by the user before accounts were approved.
Mr Samler added: “Voi as a company and myself personally clearly take it (children riding e-scooters illegally) very seriously and challenge ourselves to think how we can prevent under-age riding of our scooters.
“This tragic incident is the first we have seen on a Voi scooter globally across well over 100 million rides.”
Explaining why he was issuing a prevention of future deaths report, the coroner told the court: “In my opinion, based on the evidence I have heard, there is a risk of future death through children using e-scooters.
“And in my opinion, based on the evidence I have heard, there is a reasonable prospect that those responsible for policy and regulation can reduce the risk of death.”
Stressing that the evidence had demonstrated that Voi had not cut any corners, the coroner added: “They followed the Department of Transport’s guidance and in fact went somewhat further around the process for verifying identity.”
At the end of the inquest, the coroner read out a family statement paying tribute to Mustafa.
The statement read: “He was one of a kind, a child that would always have a smile on his face.
“Starting from primary school all the way up to secondary school, he lived a life full of laughter and kindness.
“His pure, innocent soul lit up the streets of our neighbourhood and without him, everything seems so dull.”
