Investigations are under way after two children drowned in separate incidents this weekend.

Police and the Health and Safety Executive have launched a joint inquiry after the death of a seven-year-old girl who was found unconscious in a swimming pool yesterday afternoon.

Paramedics rushed to the Blackwater Leisure Centre in Maldon, Essex, shortly after 2pm but were unable to revive her. She was pronounced dead at Colchester General Hospital about an hour later.

An Essex Police spokeswoman said an investigation had been launched and the Health and Safety Executive had been informed.

Graham Farrant, chief executive of Leisure Connection, which runs the centre, said: “All our thoughts and sympathies are with the family and we will do anything we can to help the police investigate this tragic incident. The centre will remain closed while this vital investigation takes place.”

In another tragedy, a three-year-old boy has died after being found in a garden pond.

The child was taken to Birmingham Children’s Hospital after he was discovered in the water in the rear garden of a residential property in Moseley, Birmingham, shortly before 5.30pm yesterday. He had been reported missing to police around an hour earlier.

West Midlands Police confirmed today that the boy died in hospital shorty before midnight. A force spokesman said: "Police were called to reports of a missing three-year-old boy at approximately 4.26pm from an address in Coppice Road, Moseley. The boy was later found in a pond in a residential garden in the area. It was a tragic accident. We ask that the family are left alone to grieve.”

The owner of the detached house on Anderton Park Road, whose garden pond the little boy was found in, said he did not wish to speak about the incident.

A neighbour, who also did not wish to be named, said she had seen police cars and a helicopter hovering above the house yesterday afternoon.

She said: “We didn’t see an ambulance and we thought they might have been burgled. It’s really shocking to hear what’s happened.”

From her kitchen window the pond and fountain was visible in the landscaped garden.

The woman said the family had only just redesigned their garden after a tornado two or three years ago had destroyed it.

She said: “They were burgled last year as well. They are a lovely family, really nice neighbours.”

The little boy was visiting relatives at a house on nearby Coppice Road when he went missing, neighbours said. The garden of the large detached home backs onto the garden in Anderton Park Road, where the boy was found.

The owners of the property on Coppice Road, believed to be the boy’s aunt and uncle, did not want to comment.

Their neighbour, a 67-year-old man, said he understood the boy had been playing with his cousins when he disappeared.

He said: “The children were playing when he apparently got lost. He does not live on this street - he was visiting the house with his parents. He must have got through the gardens.”

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• UK regional accents thrive against the odds
• ‘Scarecrow’ wind farms put rare birds to flight
• What an anti-climax: G-spot is a myth