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The tragic death of football manager Steve Bruce’s four-month-old grandson, Madison Bruce Smith, was linked to being placed in an unsafe sleeping position, an inquest at Stockport Coroner’s Court heard. Madison was discovered unresponsive by his father, former Leeds United striker Matt Smith, at their Trafford family home earlier this year. The baby had reportedly been laid on his front, a position advised by an unregulated maternity nurse employed by the family through Ruthie Maternity Services, a company neither regulated nor medically accredited.
Matt Smith and his wife Amy, Steve Bruce’s daughter, believed that Eva Clements—the maternity nurse they hired—was properly trained and vetted. However, the inquest revealed that Clements lacked medical qualifications. While she held a degree in early years education, she admitted to having no formal medical training. Ruth Asare, who heads Ruthie Maternity Services, also acknowledged she only possessed a first aid certificate and a Level 2 diploma obtained through a brief course and some coursework, rather than any medical certification. The coroner noted that Clements had advised the family to place Madison on his stomach, a position contrary to NHS safe sleeping guidelines, basing her advice on her own experience of having four children who had all slept this way without incident.
Senior coroner Alison Mutch described the purported expertise of untrained maternity nurses as potentially dangerous for children cared for under such unregulated services. She stressed the need for official regulation to protect families from being misled, explaining that while the title “registered nurse” is legally controlled, the term “nurse” is not. This ambiguity, she said, creates a false impression of professional capability. Mutch expressed hope that future regulation would prevent similar heartache, emphasizing that parents should not be left to trust individuals who lack proper qualifications.
Madison’s parents, alongside Steve Bruce and his son Alex Bruce, attended the hearing. Steve Bruce, then managing Blackpool FC, missed the team’s next game following the tragedy and described the ordeal in a heartfelt message on the club’s official social media account as “the worst time of my family’s entire lives.” Matt Smith referred to Madison as their “precious, perfect little boy” and spoke about the devastating impact of his loss on the family. He called for regulation of maternity services to avoid other families experiencing similar tragedies. The police investigation resulted in the arrest of Eva Clements on suspicion of neglect, but no charges were brought as the Crown Prosecution Service concluded the criminal threshold had not been met, partly due to the current lack of regulation in this area and the legal ambiguity regarding sleeping positions
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