A one-year-old toddler died after going to visit the lambs on his grandfather’s land in Mildenhall, a court heard.

On Wednesday, the inquest of Roan Robbie Butcher was heard at Suffolk Coroners’ Court in Ipswich.

Roan, who was 17 months old, died from a catastrophic brain injury on April 5 last year after a concrete wall collapsed on top of him.

Evidence in court was given, with experts saying that there was no way his family could have known this would happen.

The court heard that Roan’s father, Zach Butcher, had picked him up from nursery at 4.30pm on April 5. He then took Roan to visit the lambs kept at his family home in Mildenhall.

The court heard that the Butchers do not run a farm, but keep sheep more as a hobby.

Roan, the court heard, loved to see the lambs and would often visit them with his father.

The court heard that the lambs were being kept in a large, open-sided barn which had small, concrete walls about three feet high creating individual pens. Some of these had gate posts and gates attached, others did not.

The court heard that Mr Butcher lifted Roan up and placed him in a pen with the lambs. He then stepped over the wall and into the pen himself.

However, this caused the wall to become dislodged, and collapsed outwards on top of Roan.

Mr Roan ran with Roan to his family’s home, where emergency services were called. The decision was made to take Roan to hospital, but they had only travelled a short distance when he entered cardiac arrest. Paramedics arrived on scene and took Roan to Addenbrookes Hospital.

However, his head injury was “irreversible”, and Roan died in the emergency department later that day.

Giving evidence in court was Peter Stickley, a former Health and Safety Executive inspector.

Mr Stickley told the court it is likely that as the wall had no gate attached, its integrity had been compromised and a small amount of force would have caused it to fall down.

However, he said that he would not expect people who were not well-versed in construction to anticipate that the wall would collapse.

“You wouldn’t know the wall would fail until you applied the right force at the right location,” he said. “You might rock the wall at the top and think, that’s not sturdy – but you would only know that at the very last minute.”

Presiding coroner Darren Stewart concluded that Roan died as the result of an accident.

It was tragic, he said, that Roan’s life had been taken at such a young age, and he ended proceedings by offering his own sincere condolences to Roan’s family.