A BROMLEY couple are flying to the Bahamas today to watch three men stand trial for their young son’s death.

It is the culmination of a six-year legal battle for Paul and Andrea Gallagher, of Repton Road, Orpington.

Their two-year-old toddler, also called Paul, was killed by an out-of-control speedboat that mounted the beach where he was sleeping, at the luxurious Atlantis Paradise Island resort, in August 2002.

The boat flew over Paul’s head but the propeller split his head open.

He died five days later in hospital.

Boat driver James Bain and craft owners Clifford Nottage and Evangeless Williamson will be tried for manslaughter by negligence, in Nassau, from April 14.

The family has spent more than £50,000 and suffered several setbacks in their quest to have the evidence examined fully.

An original 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.

Andrea said after that verdict: “We want accountability for the people that caused little Paul’s death and we want them to make the beaches in the Bahamas safer. We are only an ordinary family from Orpington but Paul was our life.”

It was not until 2005 that the Bahamian authorities allowed detectives from the Metropolitan Police to visit the island to conduct an investigation in co-operation with Bahamian police.

The defendants were charged last year and each pleaded not guilty.

Williamson denies a further charge of perjury.

Little Paul was the first millennium baby born in Bromley at 54 minutes past midnight, on January 1, 2000.