Three men have been cleared of killing a toddler after he was hit by a speedboat.

Paul Gallagher, aged two, from Orpington, was sleeping on the beach at the luxury Atlantis Paradise Island resort in the Bahamas in August 2002, when a speedboat left the water and hit him on the head with its propellor.

He died in hospital five days later.

Boat driver James Bain and craft owners Clifford Nottage and Evangeless Williamson were being tried for manslaughter in the island’s capital Nassau, but all three were dramatically cleared by a jury on the orders of the judge on Wednesday.

Paul’s parents, Paul and Andrea Gallagher of Repton Road, Orpington, reportedly reacted angrily to the decision.

They have spent more than £50,000 and campaigned for six years for the trial.

An inquest in the Bahamas in 2003 recorded a verdict of accidental death, but a year later coroner Dr Roy Palmer recorded an open verdict at an inquest in Bromley.

During the trial it emerged the Gallaghers had sought a £1.5million settlement from one of the men accused. Mrs Gallagher told the court: “It was wrong, we were depressed, we were in treatment, we lost our business, we lost everything and our son. We were just thinking of our other two children.”

And recalling the moment the boat struck her son she said: “His head was split open. A huge chunk of his head was missing. And I could see into my own child’s brain.”

Bain, Nottage and Williamson all denied manslaughter through negligence. Williamson also denied a further charge of perjury.