No deep water warnings at leisure park beach where girl drowned, inquest hears

There were no signs warning of deep water at a leisure park where an 11-year-old girl drowned during a birthday party, an inquest has heard.

Kyra Hill got into difficulty in a designated swimming area at Liquid Leisure near Windsor, Berkshire, in August 2022.

The water in parts of the park was metres deep in places but signs only warned it was shallow, Tuesday’s hearing was told.

Kyra was found more than an hour after emergency services were called and taken to Wexham Park Hospital in Slough, where she was pronounced dead.

There were “various sharp drops” of up to 4.5m (14.7ft) within the swimming zone, senior coroner Heidi Connor told Berkshire Coroner’s Court.

The lake was 2.68m (8.8ft) deep where Kyra was seen going under, a report carried out after the incident found.

However, the only signs relating to depth in the designated swimming zone said “danger shallow water”.

There was a 10-minute gap between the first and second searches for Kyra in that part of the lake, the inquest heard.

A then-17-year-old lifeguard, named as Abbi, was on her chair when she spotted splashing that concerned her, the hearing was told.

Abbi, who was then a schoolgirl and qualified to perform “surface-water rescues” but not underwater ones, reached the point where Kyra went under the water in 10 seconds, the inquest heard.

She dived repeatedly and left the water to raise the alarm using a radio, the coroner said.

A member of the public kept looking in that area and CCTV shows it took another 10 minutes for staff to re-enter, the inquest heard.

Meanwhile, searches started in the surrounding main lake, the junior inflatables and the “ninja park”, which is made up of larger inflatables, the coroner said.

Liquid Leisure owner and director Stuart Marston, waterpark manager David Novell, and Abbi, discussed the incident and footage shows the lifeguard pointing to the area that Kyra went under, the coroner said.

Abbi qualified as a lifeguard in April 2022 and became emotional multiple times during evidence.

She told the inquest: “I noticed there was a big group out in the water and I noticed there was splashing, but this was friendly splashing prior.

“I was sitting on my chair and I’ve seen the splashing in the water, this splashing did not look right to me … didn’t look like normal splashing of children playing.”

“It was out of depth”, she said, adding: “It just looked wrong with me, it’s very hard to explain but my instincts told me it was wrong.”

Asked what she told Mr Novell, she said: “I asked the group that I’d gone towards if there was anyone there and I got told no, there was no-one – I kept repeating ‘was there someone here, was there someone here’, and I got told they got out of the water.”

Someone shouted “where is Kyra”, she confirmed.

The visibility was “terrible” and that did not improve when she re-entered the water with goggles 10 minutes later, she said.

She confirmed she made it to the bottom of the lake during the rescue attempts, and that she had thought the park was a safe place to work.

Abbi first entered the water at 3.20pm.

A previous hearing was told emergency services were called to the scene at 3.55pm, and that Kyra was found just after 5.10pm and taken to hospital.

Mr Marston was quizzed on Tuesday morning about the lack of deep water signs.

The coroner asked him: “Do you think it’s reasonable for a parent seeing that sign to think all of the water is shallow?”

The owner, who set up the park in 2002, said: “You could interpret it in different ways but, yes, you could interpret it that way.”

Shallow water signs were erected following a civil claim after someone hit the bottom with their knee, he added.

“We were told to put danger shallow water signs around the facility so people didn’t jump in,” he said

“It’s very difficult, in hindsight now… if there was a deep water sign there and also shallow water (signs), it would be conflicting.”

Mr Marston initially told the inquest he believed “to the best of my knowledge” that the depth of the water in the beach area had been measured before Kyra’s death.

Rachel Marcus, representing the Hill family, put to him that they had not seen any documentation stating it had.

Mr Marston responded: “I would say then if you haven’t seen anything then it hasn’t been tested.

“Tested in the way of the robot coming in and doing the underground stuff, then, no, we haven’t done any testing on the swimming area.”

Buoyancy aids were not required for people over six-years-old, provided they were competent swimmers.

People were required to sign a waiver saying they were a competent swimmer, had a reasonable level of fitness and ability, and were able to exit the water without assistance, the inquest heard.

CCTV of the incident showed around 42 people in the water and others on the beach, the coroner said.

One lifeguard was overseeing the area and Mrs Connor put it to Mr Marston that Liquid Leisure’s policy required at least one lifeguard per 30 participants.

He said lifeguards at nearby activities, in the same lake as the beach area, would occasionally check from their stations.

“Others do look around because it’s never at full capacity on all of the activities,” he added.

The director later accepted that more lifeguards should have been on duty.

The beach starts as sand but becomes “silt and mud” further out, with some witnesses describing it as “squishy” at the bottom, the coroner said.

She suggested this could decrease water visibility.

There were no warnings about the texture of the bottom or the visibility, the inquest heard.

The family’s lawyer also put to Mr Marston that the muddy bottom could be difficult to push off from.

Mr Marston replied: “I’ve never had a problem, no-one has ever said it would be hard to push off of.”

The point at which sand turned to mud would vary through the year but this was not monitored, he added.

The coroner said it would not be forgotten “that this is about your Kyra, an 11-year-old girl who supported Manchester United and who dreamt of a career in law”.

A previous hearing was told a post-mortem examination gave the cause of her death as drowning.

The hearing continues.