The Perth boy was just six months old in January 2013 when his mother put him into the seat and positioned it under a running shower to cool him down.
She left him alone for just a few minutes but in that time, he fell out of the seat, which had moved so it was blocking the drain, and drowned in the shallow water, the Western Australian Coroner’s Court heard.
He was taken to Joondalup Health Campus but died three days later.
The seat was not fitted with a safety restraint. Bumbo issued a voluntary recall of nearly 4 million seats in August 2012 after it was revealed that children could fall out of the seat. They offered free safety harnesses to retrofit to existing seats, but many people didn’t know about the risks, particularly those who bought seats second hand.
Lawyers assisting the coroners told the court that of nearly 950 Bumbos listed for sale in Australia on an online auction site, half did not include the safety harness.
