Tributes to Scout who died in river

The child - named by a source close to the inquiry as Alan Lock - was pulled from the River Stour in Sudbury, Suffolk, on Tuesday night.

He was taken to the West Suffolk Hospital in nearby Bury St Edmunds but died a few hours later.

Police said they were treating the death as "unexplained" while they investigate how the boy came to be in the river.

Alan was a Beaver Scout with the 1st Acton and Waldingfield Scout Group, based in the village of Acton, near Sudbury. He was part of a group of Beavers, aged between six and eight, taking part in a supervised walk along the riverbank on Tuesday evening.

It is believed there were between 15 and 20 children and adults in the party. Under normal Scouting rules, there would be four or five adults in a group this size.

A Scout Association spokesman could not confirm how many adults were there to supervise the youngsters.

He said: "We will launch an inquiry of our own to establish that our rules were followed, and to establish if there are any lessons to be learned for the future."

It is "extremely rare" for an incident like this to occur on a Scouting trip, he added.

A relative paid tribute to Alan in an online message - and questioned how the tragedy came about. Trudi Staples, the boy's second cousin, wrote on the website of the East Anglian Daily Times: "He was a gorgeous little boy and the world will be a much emptier place without him. I am struggling to come to terms with how this was allowed to happen on an organised trip."