Coroner questions TV show after six-year-old boy accidentally hanged himself

Mason Jones from Bury, Greater Manchester, died of asphyxiation on July 13 after playing a game of hangman while using the rope as a swing during a game with his twin sisters.

The rope had been tied around a bannister rail on stairs leading up to an attic play room and was around his neck when he was strangled, an inquest heard.

Jenny Jones told the hearing that the day before Mason died, her three children had been playing a game they had seen on TV called Jungle Run.

Miss Jones said it involved monkeys swinging across water.

She had told them to take the skipping rope down and it was untied but the next day Mason was killed.

Coroner Simon Nelson, recording a verdict of accidental death, said: "The one concern I have relates neither to Mason, the children of the family, but relates in part to how an inquiry such as this is reported.

"I am most anxious that other children of a similar age are not tempted to use the same type of mechanism in their course of play and concerned also as to the type of game or activity that's featured and broadcast, that again, without any proper warning to parents or appropriate advice to children, suggests possibly to children that what they are doing is entirely safe.

"There has been mention of a particular programme and activity in the course of this inquiry.

"I have not seen that programme. I know not how graphic that activity was shown, or any appropriate warning in the course of or in advance of that programme, but they are the wider concerns I have arising from this inquiry."