When Cheryl Cressey took her son into the emergency room at Darlington Memorial Hospital, she assumed he was in safe hands. David Roberts looks at how a wrong diagnosis led to every parent’s worst nightmare.

CHERYL CRESSEY did everything she was supposed to.

The instructions on the Meningitis UK website could not be clearer: “Follow your instincts and act fast. If you think something is wrong, go immediately to your nearest GP or casualty unit.”

When, on the evening of Sunday, February 27, 2005, her son, William, ten, suddenly began screaming in agony, clutching his head and complaining of neck stiffness, she immediately rang an out-of-hours GP service. The operator advised her to take him straight to Darlington Memorial Hospital.

As a mother, she had always felt it was important to read up about childhood illnesses, and knew immediately something was wrong.

An illness that William had when he was four was thought to have been meningitis, and this bore many of the same symptoms. She acted quickly and took him straight to the hospital, a short drive from their home in Hurworth Place, near Darlington.

She must have felt palpable relief when her son was seen quickly by a doctor in A&E.

Yet, that relief soon turned to dismay when she was advised that it was only a migraine and told to take him home and give him some Calpol. She said: “I knew there was a good chance it could be meningitis. The difference in his illness had been so sudden and the change had been so marked, I knew it was very serious.

“He was far too ill and had far too many other symptoms that you do not get with a migraine.”

Mrs Cressey refused to leave the hospital, and a space on the children’s ward was found for William.

Mrs Cressey said she begged hospital staff to carry out blood tests and prescribe antibiotics, but her protestations fell on deaf ears.

Her version of events differs to that of the hospital staff, who argue that William began to show signs of improvement and did not display some of the symptoms she said he had.

Nevertheless, no firm diagnosis was ever made.

Staff admitted that they had considered meningitis might be a possibility, but not all of the tests that would have confirmed the presence of the disease were carried out.

Mrs Cressey’s frustration and anger can only be imagined because doctors told her there was nothing serious about William’s condition.

Only a cursory test was done for meningitis by the doctor on the ward, and it was believed he might have had pneumonia or a respiratory tract infection.

Mrs Cressey refused to be swayed. She said: “He was scarlet. The sweat was pouring off him, but his hands and feet were icy cold.”

At one point, a nurse visited the room and invited William to follow him. Mrs Cressey broke down as she recounted how her hopes were dashed.

She said: “We walked down the corridor and through the door and we were in a games room. The nurse went to a machine and handed him a bat.

“I said, ‘this is wrong’, I could not believe it. I thought he was going to help him.”

Later on the Monday afternoon, William was discharged from the hospital.

Again, Mrs Cressey said staff were adamant that nothing was wrong. She said: “They told me to get some Calpol on the way home.

“He was dying and they told me to take him to the shops.

“He had not been examined by a doctor since 9.10am that morning.”

Within only a few hours, William was back in hospital after he had a massive seizure at home.

Yet still he was not given any form of major pain relief or antibiotics straight away.

In heartrending detail, Mrs Cressey told this week’s inquest at Newcastle how she watched her son spend the last hours of his life in unbearable agony.

She had done everything she was expected to do as a mother, but the hospital system had failed her.

Following the inquest, the hospital said lessons have been learnt and new systems have been put in place to ensure it will not happen again.

For William Cressey, however, it is too late.