A grieving mother has agreed to help train police liaison officers after she was treated “appallingly” when told of the death of her teenage son abroad, last year.

Wycombe’s police chief Superintendent Ed McLean has this week apologised to the family of James Fifield and said he hopes the insensitive actions will never be repeated, adding if it had happened to his family he would have been equally as unhappy.

The 18-year-old, from Marlow, was killed after a drunk driver hit his quadbike in Zante, Greece, on July 5 last year, and when two young PCSOs broke the tragic news to his mother, they were unable to offer much consolation or information.

Bucks Free Press:

James Fifield was killed in Zante.

Claire Fifield-Moore, James’ mother, said: “We had a knock on the door, it was two young PCSOs who hadn’t had any training, basically came in and said “are you Claire? Is your son James? He died on a quadbike” and then gave us a telephone number and left us.

“Police liaison officers are meant to go through this with you and talk you through it and to make contact with people, but they didn’t know. It wasn’t their fault they didn’t know how to handle it, they were young kids, it was a debacle.

“I had no idea what was going on, eight months later I still felt like I was underwater and the lack of any assistance did not help. We had this telephone number for the Foreign [and Commonwealth] Office but they had limited information too.”

Earlier this year, Mrs Fifield-Moore held a meeting with former Thames Valley Police Chief Constable Sara Thornton and has agreed to help train future liaison officers.

Wycombe Superintendent Ed McLean has also “reviewed” the situation and arranged for one of their lead liaison staff to work with the family, while thanking Mrs Fifield-Moore for her help.

He said: “We have tightened-up all of our procedures so it shouldn’t happen ever again, especially now that we are educating our staff so they understand.

“In the future if the system doesn’t pick these things up our officers will know exactly what to do.”

“Ordinarily in Thames Valley if somebody dies overseas, or dies in this country as a result of a road traffic collision, we would normally send our roads policing department to them, and with them comes someone called a family liaison officer.

Bucks Free Press:

James Fifield (pictured left) celebrating the end of A-Level exams with friends in Zante.

“Their role is to support and facilitate the family through the loss of that bereaved individual and keep them updated with the investigation. That didn’t happen on this occasion.

“So those officers went and they came back, and the mother of the deceased basically wasn’t supported very well and had to do lots of online research. It wasn’t good enough.”

Talking about the changes she would like to see made, Mrs Fifield-Moore said: “My thought process is that I will go in and say look at the basics.

“Go in, make sure someone else is in the house with them, sit the person down, give them a cup of tea, give as much information as you have.

“It’s not their fault they didn’t have any information for me, but it was just the way it was done. It was really bad.

“That first port of call is crucial to the family, because you’re changing their life forever with this information and you need to give them something to go with, and we had nothing.”

Bucks Free Press:

Friends created this canvas of James, after his death last year.