A city daily has marked the one-year anniversary of a tragedy which took the lives of four young boys and left its community numb with pain.

The Birmingham Mail paid tribute to the lives of brothers Samuel and Finlay Butler, their cousin Thomas Stewart and youngster Jack Johnson with a special front page which read ‘Forever In Our Hearts’.

Tragedy struck on December 11, 2022 when the boys went out to play in wintery scenes at a local beauty spot, only to slip into icy waters.

The Mail’s front page carried images of all four boys as well as a memorial plaque which has been erected at the Babbs Mill nature reserve that carries the message ‘In Memory of the Babbs Mill Boys… Lost but not Forgotten.”

The front page of the Birmingham Mail with the headline ‘Forever In Our Hearts’.

Senior reporter Naomi DeSouza wrote a heartfelt piece for both the printed edition and the associated website BirminghamLive, in which she expressed the pain still felt within the region.

And an inside spread carried interviews with members of the emergency services who had opened up about their experiences that day for the first time.

Wrote Naomi: “The whole of the West Midlands had iced over and the biggest news story of the day was the rolling weather alerts and snow pictures our readers were sending in.

“For youngsters like these four boys, wintery scenes at Babbs Mill, a much loved green space in Kingshurst’s post-war estate, was the perfect place to play. Nobody could have predicted the scale of loss and pain awaiting their families and a whole community.

“Sam, Fin, Tom and Jack had slipped into treacherously cold waters while out on the lake, the ice giving way beneath their feet.”

The boys were rescued by heroic police, fire and ambulance crews and rushed to hospital, but they sadly all died, leaving the BirminghamLive newsroom with a decision to make on how to cover such a heart-breaking tragedy.

Added Naomi: “Reporting on home turf is a privilege; people share vulnerable details of their lives and give you the greatest of trust.

“But when it came to Babbs Mill, it threw up a different kind of challenge – the community had been knocked sideways, how do we approach this?

“So we made the call not to knock on doors and stand back from approaching distraught families. It is our job to bring you the news from our community in a way that reflects our borough and the people in it, even when it’s incredibly hard to hear.

“We focused on the incredible efforts of 999 crews, whose stories we bring to you one year on. Of the firefighters who exposed themselves to risk way beyond the call of duty, the brave police officers who formed a human chain against advice, and the ambulance medics who worked on the boys for hours before they were blue-lit to hospital.

“No one will ever forget the Babbs Mill boys and what took place here last year, people here won’t let that happen.

“The events of last year will stay with us forever, this was a devastating tragedy. Today, one year on, we remember Fin, Sam, Thomas and Jack, who will be at the forefront of our minds, along with their families.”