A British executive whose two-year-old son died after falling from an open hotel window in Cyprus has left court after pleading guilty to causing the tragedy.
Joshua Foster, from Essex, was told by a judge that he would carry guilt for the rest of his life over his son’s fatal fall from the fourth floor of the five-star King Evelthon Hotel near Paphos in July.
The 37-year-old broke down in tears and hugged his lawyer after being told that a prison sentence was not appropriate. Instead, he was ordered to pay a €3,000 (£2,531) fine.
After being barred from leaving Cyprus following his arrest, Foster walked to his parents at the back of the courtroom, embraced them and said: “We can go home.”
Speaking to reporters after the hearing, Foster said: “Thank you for your support. I’m just looking forward to going home and being home with my wife and daughter.”
He then left with his parents to collect the documents needed to depart Cyprus.
Judge Froso Christodoulidou said the case was “very serious”, but noted that there had been no intention to kill. She accepted Foster’s guilty plea, conduct and personal circumstances as mitigating factors.
“It is no exaggeration to say that for the rest of his life he will have guilt for losing his child in such a tragic way,” she said.
Joshua Foster (right), a 37-year-old KPMG AI director, pleaded guilty over the death of his two-year-old son, who died after falling from a hotel window in Cyprus
The fourth-floor window from which the British two-year-old fell to his death in Cyprus
Foster arrives at Paphos District Court in Cyprus for sentencing on October 16
Foster’s lawyer, Alexandros Alexandrou, speaks to journalists outside Paphos District Court after sentencing on Friday
Summing up the case, Judge Christodoulidou said the accident had resulted in “grief and sadness”. She said she had been required to consider both the recklessness involved and Foster’s personal circumstances.
“Whenever there is loss of life, no sentence is satisfactory,” she said.
The judge acknowledged that, although Foster’s actions were reckless, they amounted to a mistake and that he had not realised the window was open.
Foster had consumed some drinks earlier that day, but Judge Christodoulidou said alcohol had not contributed to the accident.
She said Foster had been unaware of any danger and that “it all happened so fast”. He had “cooperated immediately”, saving the court time, while all those involved—including his wife—had suffered. The judge also noted that he had no previous criminal record.
The judge added that there had been “no time to react” when the child slipped from Foster’s hands during “moments of relaxation”. However, she said it had been negligent not to check whether the window was open or closed.
Despite this, she described his actions as an “innocent mistake” and said he would have to “face his guilt for the rest of his life”.
Judge Christodoulidou said the case had caused “lots of harm to his family”, would affect his career and led her to conclude that a prison sentence was not appropriate.
However she said she ‘cannot overlook the seriousness of the case’ and fined him €3,000.
Alexandros Alexandrou, Foster’s lawyer, told reporters via an interpreter: ‘This case should not have gone to court.
‘We had asked for this case to be suspended initially, unfortunately this was not accepted.
‘Three months later, the sentence is the minimal sentence that can be imposed.
‘I feel that within the last three months, it was the last opportunity for this gentleman [Foster] to grieve as he wanted to and to be with his family.
‘Because no sentence, even in the event of a prison sentence, can bring back [his child] or bring justice.
‘This was an unfortunate incident, do not forget that this has to do with [Mr Foster’s] child and this time would have been very very efficient for him to dedicate to his family, to his daughter who is going through a very difficult phase.’
Mr Alexandrou described his client as an ‘extraordinary father’ and ‘very good husband’.
He said Foster is a ‘family man’ with ‘a beautiful family behind him that supports him, embraces him, that is always by his side’.
‘What will remain with me forever was his great spirit, Mr Alexandrou told reporters.
After his arrest, Foster was tested for drugs and alcohol and results showed he had 34mg of alcohol per 100ml – equivalent to about one drink.
Mr Alexandrou stressed this result had ‘nothing to do with’ the incident.
He added: ‘The alcohol content had nothing to do with the situation because there was no testimony that appeared to show that his actions were affected by possible alcohol consumption.
‘This is very important for the psychological state of my client.’
Foster, an AI director at KPMG, ‘lost control’ of the two-year-old while showing him the view of a water park from the fourth floor of the five-star hotel on July 12, Paphos District Court heard.
Foster, his father-in-law, and son were walking to the elevator when the toddler noticed the water park outside.
But Foster did not know the windows were open and ‘lost control and contact with his son’, who slipped and plunged 33ft.
The father, from Essex, was arrested and held on remand.
He pleaded guilty last month to causing the death of his child, in the hope the authorities will show mercy and give him a suspended sentence that would allow him to return to the UK to grieve.
The toddler was the third British tourist to die at the five-star King Evelthon Hotel near Paphos in four years
Mr Foster placed the toddler on a windowsill at the King Evelthon Hotel, near Paphos, not realising the window was open
After Foster’s arrest, a blood sample was taken to detect alcohol or drugs which showed he had the equivalent to about one drink in his system
The boy fell from a 9ft by 4ft window at Cyprus’s five-star King Evelthon Hotel near Paphos. He was the third British tourist to die at the hotel in four years.
Foster ‘saw the child falling, went downstairs with the lift and ran towards his son’, finding him ‘unconscious’ on the veranda below.
His wife, who cannot be named, was notified and raced to the scene where she ‘held the child in her arms’, prosecutor Chryso Pergandi said.
Despite efforts to resuscitate him, the boy had multiple skull fractures and could not be saved.
Foster arrived at the hotel near Paphos in the early hours of July 12 with his wife, son, five-year-old daughter and parents-in-law.
After having drinks by the pool in the afternoon he returned to his room before going to the lift with his son and father-in-law to meet the rest of the family for dinner.
Foster ‘held his child in his arms, walked, played, just as any father would in a pleasant, joyous moment of their life while on vacation’, Mr Alexandrou said.
Some distance from the window, he ‘was swinging the child in the air for fun’ – but it was accepted this had no bearing on the case and occurred before the tragedy.
Later, thinking there was ‘protective glass’ on the window, he momentarily placed his son on the windowsill ‘to see the view’ when he tragically fell.
After Foster’s arrest, a blood sample was taken to detect alcohol or drugs which showed he had 34mg of alcohol per 100ml – equivalent to about one drink.
Lab tests estimated that at the time of the accident it would have been 124mg – around four drinks – but this did not form a major part of the prosecution.
Foster was arrested and held on remand in what local media previously described as Cypriot police’s ‘cruellest act’.
Of the toddler, a family member told the Daily Mail: ‘He was a truly special, easy-going little boy who brought so much joy to everyone around him.
‘He was deeply adored and his infectious smile, warm cuddles and kind heart are already so deeply missed and always will be.’
At a hearing earlier this month, the father sat in the wooden dock and wept quietly as the facts about the case were read out.
During mitigation last week, Foster appeared emotional and wiped tears from his eyes.
Alexandros Alexandrou, defending, said Foster’s ‘remorse is clear’, adding: ‘This family has suffered a huge destruction of their family balance.
‘We do not have a person before you who is isolated from family responsibilities. We have a father, husband and a person who contributes to society.
‘As I said earlier, the defendant is an auditor. He has been informed by the board of auditors he will be called for a disciplinary process, with an actual possibility that his profession will be affected and he will be struck from the register.
‘That means a real consequence is before him. The professional consequences can be taken into account.’
Mr Alexandrou had questioned the public interest in imprisoning Foster, saying: ‘What exactly will a prison sentence achieve in terms of deterrence? There’s no recurring theme.
‘We don’t have a person who did not recognise the severity of the case. You have before you a person who experienced the most destructive and severe consequence of his actions.
‘And this is his punishment. This will not end with two, three years of prison. This is a punishment he and his family will bear for the rest of their lives.’
Foster had arrived at the hotel on July 12 with his wife, son, five-year-old daughter and parents-in-law.
After having drinks by the pool in the afternoon he returned to his room before going to the lift with his son and father-in-law to meet the rest of the family for dinner.
Mr Alexandrou said he is ‘not asking to ignore the consumption of alcohol’, but added: ‘He was on holiday, at the pool on vacation it’s something that happens.
‘But we need to separate two separate things. One thing to have alcohol in his bloodstream and another to say the alcohol is the reason that led to this incident.’
He said there was no testimony from the father-in-law or other witnesses ‘that he was walking drunk’ or ‘had obvious signs of being drunk’.
Mr Alexandrou added: ‘Immediately after the incident, he went downstairs, ran down, trying to bring the child back to consciousness, had to interact with people at the hotel, with the hospital staff, and police.
‘No one said there was a state of mind that would reach such a conclusion.’
He said immediately after the tragedy Foster was ‘in jail’.
Mr Alexandrou said: ‘He was grieving his child, the other child did not know about the condition of her brother, he was in jail, his wife in a state that the human mind cannot grasp.
‘I say this not to invoke the pity of the court but that all this for any conscientious family man is a punishment.
‘He admitted guilt and he admits the momentary oversight that will haunt him for the rest of his life. From joy to sorrow.
‘We’re allowed, even when we’re happy, to lose our concentration. And in that moment he was happy, he held his child.’
Judge Froso Christodoulidou said: ‘It was a moment of relaxation.’
Prosecutor Chryso Pergandi added that none of the facts are disputed.
Mr Foster has worked at the Big Four accountancy firm KPMG since 2015, after graduating from Loughborough University, where he met his wife.
The couple, who live in Chelmsford, in August celebrated their tenth wedding anniversary.
They have travelled together extensively – including on a seven-month ‘megamoon’ to the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Mr Foster, who has been a keen tennis player since he was young, also used his tech skills to launch a start-up called Sportch in 2021.
It is described as the UK’s ‘number one tennis competition app’, and is used by 7,000 players from 400 clubs across the country.
Early last year he stepped down as chief executive, writing in a blog post: ‘This decision hasn’t been easy, but with two young children and significant commitments elsewhere, I know it’s vital to ensure that my personal bandwidth doesn’t inhibit the growth of Sportch.’
When the Daily Mail visited the King Evelthon Hotel, where the British toddler fell to his death, it found the large fourth-floor window was still open.
UK health and safety guidelines state hotel windows large enough that children can fall through should be restricted to an opening of 4in or less.
But in Cyprus the window must simply be above a ledge at least 3.5ft tall – which King Evelthon complies with.
Mr Foster was initially held on remand without charge for eight days in what local press described as Cypriot police’s ‘cruellest act’.
Authorities focused their inquiries on him – rather than the hotel where three British guests have now died in four years, which is owned by an influential Cypriot family.
Stuck behind bars, he was forced to tell his five-year-old daughter of her brother’s death over FaceTime.
She and her mother – a 38-year-old health professional – returned home to the UK at the end of July.
Once he was formally charged, he was forced to pay a total of €30,000 (£25,750) in bail and was banned from leaving the island – though this was temporarily lifted on August 5 to allow him to bury his son.
Mr Foster’s guilty plea came after he was informed on what would have been his son’s third birthday that Cyprus attorney general George Savvides had rejected an appeal for the case to be dropped.
His lawyer Alexandros Alexandrou asked for the case to be thrown out on humanitarian grounds, arguing there was no public interest in continuing the prosecution.
Any prolonged criminal process, he added, would only deepen the family’s trauma.
The resort’s safety record has come under scrutiny after it emerged the child was the third British tourist to die there in four years.
Ben Woods, 21, from Leigh in Greater Manchester, drowned while playing volleyball in the hotel’s pool in July 2022.
Only the following year, six-year-old Ruaridh Nairne, from Inverness, also drowned.
And another woman reportedly died while swimming there in 2024.
