Grieving father demands UK ban on window-blind cords that killed girl

THE devastated father of two-year-old Muireann McLaughlin has called for a ban on looped window-blind cords after the death of his daughter.

Angus McLaughlin said he and his wife made their home in Menstrie, Clackmannanshire, "like Fort Knox", but couldn't prevent the accident last week.

Yesterday, on the eve of Muireann's funeral, Mr McLaughlin, 39, a radiology manager and folk musician, wrote about her death online on the social networking website Bebo.

Mr McLaughlin, a founder-member of Scots folk rock band Deaf Shepherd, called for a United States-style ban on looped blind cords.

The ban was introduced in the US after 359 children were strangled between 1981 and 1995.

Home safety charities believe the cords kill "one to two" children in the UK each year.

Mr McLaughlin wrote: "We thought we had Fort Knox. My family and friends complain they can't get anywhere in our house without wrist strain trying to work out all the locks and barriers we have.

"But still we are afflicted with the worst thing of all – our little princess being ripped from us by, of all things, a fairly innocuous window blind cord.

"God knows how the wee one actually reached the damn thing, but we have to pick up the pieces with our surviving dynamic duo. Cut the damn cords, my friends, save yourselves from a tragedy."

He continued: "Safety is paramount, the design of these things is fundamentally flawed, there are no safeguards.

"Muireann was only 10.5 kilograms – our other two would have taken the blind off the bloody wall.

"Do yourselves and me a favour and campaign about the safety of home products and ask yourselves why a product, banned in the USA ten years ago, is still being manufactured in this country.

"We had them installed thinking them relatively safe. Our lesson has been learned in a very hard way," he wrote. "God rest her little soul."

Roger Vincent, spokesman for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (Rospa), said: "In an ideal world manufacturers wouldn't produce blinds and curtains with looped cords. In the US they haven't been producing them for 12 or 13 years now.

"But even if that is addressed by the manufacturers there will be millions of these in homes.

"It is important that tragedies like this highlight that children can get their heads into these loops from time to time and can be killed.

"Our advice is that parents cut the loops on the cords and try to keep them out of the reach of children."

Mr Vincent added: "We estimate there are around one or two a year in the UK where children become entangled.

"Parents and those looking after children need to be aware of these hazards."

Mr McLaughlin also revealed that Muireann's heart valves were given for transplant, to "allow two other children life".

Muireann's funeral will take place today at St Paul's Episcopal Church in Kinross, before she is buried at Alva Cemetery, Clackmannanshire. The family have asked for donations to be given to the Make a Wish Foundation for seriously ill children.

Messages of sympathy for Angus, Muireann's mother Katie, and their children Aoife, six, and Cian, four, were posted on Mr McLaughlin's Bebo page.

One woman, identifying herself only as Stacy, wrote: "Hi, Angus, nobody can really tell just what you and your family are going through at the moment.

"I'm from Fife and I have to say your tragic news has touched a lot of people through here. Keep your chin up and you'll get through the days. My kind thoughts xxxx."

A friend of the family, Kenny Scott, wrote: "Angus, my dear friend, I am lost for words to say about your devastating loss. Our thoughts and prayers are with you, Katie and the family."