‘My son died after training in bin bag to lose weight... now his boxing coach has licence back’

Michelle Bilbey was trying to save her son’s life when she first walked into Somercotes’ gym in 2012 and clocked all the pictures of champions. “I wanted Ed to box so he wouldn’t be on the street selling drugs like so many others,” the hair salon owner explains. “Rendall Munroe [former WBC Super bantamweight challenger] and others were up there on the wall. So you think ‘well, they obviously know what they’re on about’. Especially, when, like me, you haven’t got a clue about boxing.”

Michelle, from Derbyshire, had initially started attending for boxercise classes but, over the following five years, the venue became a second home for three of her four boys. “I just thought it was so good that my three sons were into this,” she explains. “Ed was at the extreme in everything that he did. He was 100 per cent dedicated to everything he did, even in school work he excelled.”

In his early secondary school years, football had been his passion but “he gave it up because in boxing it could be just down to him and his efforts”.

“He had no doubt he was going to be a world champion,” Michelle added.

Jay Shinfield, a trainer of national repute who once dated Michelle, encouraged such lofty ambitions. “If Rendall [Munroe] did 100 sit ups, Ed would do 110 to try to be better than him,” Michelle said. “He was very focused and determined. I’ve never seen that in anyone so young.”

‘He was so thin, his shorts fell off’

England Boxing soon scouted Ed and elder brother Henry for training at its sporting excellence programme at University College Birmingham. Michelle, a single mother, worked extra hours to raise the £200 so the boys could make their regular 50-mile trips to Birmingham.

But it was at Somercotes’ Elite Boxing Academy in Alfreton, under the close watch of Shinfield, that Ed pushed himself to fatal limits to win the East Midlands novice welterweight title. By then 6ft tall and 17, he had been attempting to make a 10st 7lb weight limit that he could only easily meet before he had a growth spurt.

Despite Michelle regularly raising concerns, Ed took overly hot baths, slept in layers of clothes and went running wearing bin bags amid desperate attempts to sweat off fat. “I remember one day before the fight he’d gone running and lost so much weight that the shorts that he wore over his leggings had fallen off and he’d lost them on the way,” Michelle said.

By the time of his boxing show at the Post Mill Centre in South Normanton, Derbyshire, “there was literally nothing on him”. He ate just scrambled eggs for breakfast and barely drank water. Michelle is tearful as she recalls how, at the end of the fight, the referee lifted up both Ed and his opponent’s arms before her son stumbled forwards on the ropes and collapsed. Doctors pronounced him dead from cardiac failure before her eyes.

‘My son’s case got overlooked’

Six years on, she remains on antidepressants and hopes of “justice” – that Shinfield would be banned from working with other boxers – have now been denied. “Following a hearing before the stewards of the British Boxing Board of Control, the stewards found the matter not proven and the suspension of Mr Shinfield’s licence was lifted,” the professional governing body has announced.

Michelle, of Ripley, says the verdict is “inexplicable” given criticism of Shinfield not only at her son’s inquest in 2020 but also the independent Thomas Report published this summer.

“I’m so disappointed with BBBofC’s decision to give him back his licence and also that all my son’s death seems worthy of is a refresher training course for trainers,” said Michelle.

“The inquest was in the middle of Covid and so there was no one allowed to be in the public gallery or anything like that. I feel that it got overlooked. Now, here we are six years on, and that man is back in the gym.”

‘Stop telling your mother everything’

At Somercotes, records were not kept up to date, boxing coaches were not adequately trained and positions for welfare officers had been left vacant, the behind-closed-doors inquest was told.

In December 2020, the coroner singled out Shinfield as an “unreliable witness” as the trainer denied having anything to do with the amateur boxers. The teenager’s “intense physical training” and “rapid weight-loss” by dehydration had contributed to his death, the inquest found.

But it is only in recent months that “some dangerous training practices” under Shinfield’s watch have been fully in the public domain. England Boxing, the body representing amateur boxing, expressed “deep regret” over the case as safeguarding policy flaws were outlined in a new report prepared by Charles Thomas of Guildhall Chambers. He writes, however, that events “demonstrate” that Shinfield must take some blame for being “fully in control and acting in the role of the boys’ coach”.

“The effect of the evidence given to the inquest and accepted by the coroner was that by 2017 the Somercotes boxing club was being effectively run by Mr Shinfield for a small number of junior amateur boxers, including Edward and Henry Bilbey,” the report says. “At that time Mr Shinfield was not registered with England Boxing in any way. He had not taken any England Boxing coaching qualification. He had not attended a safeguarding course. He did not have an up-to-date DBS certificate.”

The report details how Michelle had said at the 2020 inquest that Ed was tired and she had said to Shinfield that she wanted the fight to be “pulled”. However, Henry had subsequently told her that “Mr Shinfield had said to Edward that he must stop telling his mother everything or he wouldn’t be able to fight for the belt”.

“Henry Bilbey in his evidence remembered that Mr Shinfield had said to Edward ‘Stop moaning about it, she’s getting on to me’,” Thomas writes.

Shinfield ‘allowed dangerous training to take place’

Crucially, as far as Michelle’s evidence is concerned, the report drew attention to “ample evidence that Mr Shinfield was aware that Edward and Henry were training in bin bags”.

“Answers given by Mr Shinfield to the coroner suggest that he was comfortable with Edward having to lose 1.7kg in the 24 hours before the fight,” Thomas writes. “This is entirely contrary to the advice given to coaches by England Boxing.”

“Significant criticisms of Jason Shinfield” justified potential sanctions as he “allowed some dangerous training practices to take place”, the report adds.

“Were Mr Shinfield registered with England Boxing, it is abundantly clear that he should be the subject of disciplinary procedures,” Thomas writes.

Thomas added that he also recommended “that consideration should be given to referring Mr Shinfield to the Disclosure and Barring Service for them to decide if he should be prevented from working with children and/or vulnerable adults”.

Shinfield, a professional trainer with more than 35 years’ experience, denied being involved with amateurs at his gym and insisted he was not coaching Ed. He told the inquest in 2020 that he would “100 per cent have pulled the fight” if he had known Edward was tired or ill. The Telegraph has made multiple efforts to contact Shinfield.

Michelle, meanwhile, says she will never understand how the BBBofC, which governs the professional sport, has come to side with Shinfield’s version of events. “I was aware that they’d asked for statements from some of Shinfield’s ex boxers, who had been boiled down to weight by him,” Michelle says of the decision. “One of them I know ended up in hospital on a drip after his fight due to dehydration. I just think he’s a very poor advocate for boxing and I’m very surprised and saddened that the BBBofC are happy to be linked with someone like him.

“Nothing can bring Ed back,” Michelle concluded, but it will not stop her nightmares that, without tougher punishments, history will now repeat itself for another mother.