The company also admitted failing to ensure there was a system in place whereby lifeguards could properly and adequately supervise people within the wave pool and for the full duration of swimming lessons.

As a consequence, Luke, who was unable to swim, was not adequately supervised by lifeguards in the wave pool on September 29, 2007, became separated from a float and slipped undetected beneath the water where he died.

Fiscal Pamela Brady said Luke drowned in the only part of the pool that could not be easily monitored by lifeguards. Although there was a lifeguard just a few feet away, the boy could not be seen from the lifeguard’s station.

Following his death, a temporary lifeguard station, not manned on the day of Luke’s death, was then permanently manned until the “wave channel wall” that had obscured the boy was taken down a few months later.

Mrs Brady said, “Health and safety failings by Dundee Leisure were tragically brought to light with the result that Luke Hutton lost his life in the pool, notwithstanding that the leisure centre was fully staffed and his mother Gail had been able to see him only a matter of seconds before he disappeared under the surface of the water.

“There are no words to describe the horror of losing a young child under these circumstances and Gail Hutton is utterly devastated by the loss of her son.

Luke had been playing in the pool with eight and nine-year-old pals, whom he had just met for the first time on the bus into town, while his mum and the mother of his two new friends were in the leisure centre’s café.

Mrs Brady said the nine-year-old girl, who could swim, had been looking after Luke and her eight-year-old brother, who couldn’t swim. The young girl had been left “terribly traumatised” by Luke’s death and blamed herself for what had happened.

Sheriff Davidson said it was clear the girl had demonstrated a “level of maturity beyond her years”.

The hearing continues.