Girl, 11, unlawfully killed after she drowned at waterpark, inquest rules

A coroner has concluded that an 11-year-old girl was unlawfully killed after she drowned at a waterpark in Berkshire in 2022.

Kyra Hill died after getting into difficulty in a designated swimming area at Liquid Leisure near Windsor while attending a birthday party on 6 August 2022.

Senior coroner Heidi Connor ruled there were gross breaches of health and safety measures at the park which contributed to her death.

The breaches related to the depth and visibility of the water and the absence of an emergency plan and risk assessment, she found.

An inquest at Berkshire Coroner’s Court heard how the schoolgirl was found more than an hour after emergency services were alerted and was taken to hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

The inquest heard there were no signs warning of deep water at the leisure park.

Despite various sharp drops of up to 4.5m (14.7ft) within the swimming zone, the only signs relating to depth said “danger shallow water”.

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

A 17-year-old lifeguard managed to reach the point where Kyra disappeared but staff at the centre are only qualified to perform “surface-water rescues” – not underwater ones.

The inquest heard evidence of how there was a 10-minute gap between the first and second searches for the youngster in that part of the lake.

Although a manager attended rapidly, 37 minutes passed between Kyra struggling and 999 being called.

The frantic search was likened to a “nightmare” by a mother attending the birthday party, while a police officer described it as a “chaotic scene” due to “conflicting” information being fed to the emergency crews.

The diver who eventually found Kyra told the inquest the lake had “almost zero visibility”.

Ms Connor noted parents and carers were not advised to attend with children in a ratio of one to four, and young children were permitted to swim without buoyancy aids.

There was also no emergency plan or risk assessment that took those factors into account, and no control measures were identified and put in place to “take account of these clear risks”, she said.

A post-mortem examination confirmed Kyra’s cause of death as “drowning”.

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Giving her conclusions, Ms Connor said: “Members of the family, at no point have I forgotten that this was about your 11-year-old, Kyra, and I am so very sorry that you are here today.

“It must have been incredibly difficult to sit in court and hear some of the evidence that we’ve heard. I offer all of you my heartfelt condolences.”

At the time of the incident, her father told Sky News she was “left to drown” and accused the operator of “neglect”.

Speaking outside court on Tuesday, Leonard Hill said: “Summer should be a time of joy in creating happy memories with family and friends.

“It should never end in tragedy. It should never mark the day we mourn our children’s lives, lost in places where they should have been safe.

“The terrible reality is that without urgent reform, more families will face these devastating goodbyes.”

Mr Hill described Kyra’s life as a “shining example of resilience and strength”.

The youngster was a Manchester United fan and dreamed of becoming a professional footballer, with a back-up plan to pursue law.

Mr Hill added: “Her memory demands that we demand safer standards now. No parent should endure this pain and no child’s life should be sacrificed so recklessly.

“We must act today for Kyra and for every family that visits these leisure parks tomorrow.

“The time for words has passed. Now is the moment for action.”