Three British teachers have been found not guilty over the death of a 12-year-old girl.
Jessica Lawson drowned in a lake on a school trip to France in 2015 after a pontoon capsized.
Steven Layne, Chantelle Lewis and Daisy Stathers had been facing charges equivalent to manslaughter by gross negligence in a French court.
Prosecutors were pushing for jail terms of up to three years but they were cleared in a court in the town of Tulle.
The lifeguard on duty at the time, Leo Lemaire and the local authority in the town of Liginiac were also found not guilty.
Tony Lawson, Jessica’s father, left the courtroom when the verdicts were announced as two of the defendants broke down into tears.
A trial heard how Ms Lewis and Ms Stathers began to ‘panic’ after noticing Jessica was missing, with both becoming emotional on the witness stand during Tuesday’s proceedings.
Mr Layne said he thought the pontoon was a safety feature and saw no signs of distress when he looked at the lifeguard after it capsized.
Ms Lewis’s legal representative earlier argued the teachers’ reaction times were the shortest possible, adding they could not warched each student ‘every microsecond’, adding his client ‘suffers under the weight of responsibility’.
A lawter acting on behalf of Mr Layne said Jessica’s death was an accident with no ‘culprits’ and that his client should not be expected to be a ‘clairvoyant’.
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