A two-year-old who was described as “joyful” by his parents died as a result of a tragic accident.

Chetachi Charles Eze, known as Charles or Charlie to his family, from Brighton, was found “slumped” in the straps of his physiotherapy chair in the afternoon of March 24 this year.

An inquest into his death at Woodvale Coroners’ Court held on Wednesday heard that his mother Chiamaka Igboayaka, a teacher, had taken him out in the car and returned home, carrying him up to her flat at the University of Sussex.

She strapped him into his physiotherapy chair, which had been prescribed to help Charlie gain strength in his back muscles because he was born prematurely.

In a written statement from his mother, read out at the inquest, she said she had left him alone to take out the bins and get some milk from the porter downstairs.

When she returned minutes later, she found her son unconscious, slumped in his chair.

She called 999 and gave him CPR on the floor as she had been instructed to by ambulance staff on the phone.

Charlie was taken to St Mary’s Hospital in London and died two and a half weeks later, on April 10, of a hypoxic brain injury, when the brain is starved of oxygen.

The doctor who referred his case to the coroner wrote in her evidence that the toddler had been “accidentally strangled” in his specialist chair.

In a patient safety report by Dr Sara Lightowlers, Charlie’s parents said he was a “joyful child who only cried when he was hungry or sick”.

The report found that the chair had been prescribed because Charlie had been born four months prematurely.

In 2019, a child had died from strangulation in a similar chair and a warning label had been added to the chest.

While the chair safety advice is not to leave a child alone in it, the report said there are times when a child is left alone due to the pressure of day to day life.

Joanne Andrews, area coroner for West Sussex, Brighton and Hove, concluded that Charlie died as a result of an accident.