Beach manager unaware of mass rescues until deaths

Sunnah Khan, 12, and 17-year-old Joe Abbess both drowned off Bournemouth beach

A council manager responsible for beaches in Bournemouth was unaware of previous mass rescues there until two young people drowned, an inquest heard.

Joe Abbess, 17, from Southampton, and 12-year-old Sunnah Khan, from High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, died after getting into trouble in the water off the beach in May 2023.

Another eight people were also rescued and treated by paramedics.

Anthony Rogers, the head of seafront for Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) Council, said he was previously unaware of serious incidents in August 2021, July 2022 and August 2022.

A group of 17 people were rescued after they were swept out to sea in a rip current on 30 August 2021.

Another eight people were rescued on 17 July 2022 and 16 were rescued on 13 August 2022.

Dorset Coroner’s Court heard the BBC News website published a story about the August 2021 rescue.

Air ambulances landed on the beach following the incident

Mr Rogers said he had been “surprised” that he was not informed about the incident, given it had been publicised to “an external audience”.

“After 31 May [2023], this came to my attention and I was shocked that I was not aware [of the incident] given the profile that it had in the local media,” he said.

Responsibility for safety on the beach is a “complex legal area” but the council had a “general responsibility” for beachgoers, Mr Rogers said.

He said the authority had “a duty to consider what measures would be reasonable to mitigate risk”.

There were no fixed signs warning beachgoers of rip currents or strong currents on the beach at the time of the incident, he said.

An advisory RNLI-led review for signs started in 2020 but had yet to finish by May 2023.

While Mr Rogers said the authority was “conscious” that some signs needed to be updated, he said it felt it had a “satisfactory level of safety elements in situ [on the beach]”.

The youngsters’ families have questioned the lifeguard response to the incident and warnings of the risk of rip currents by Bournemouth’s pier.

The court heard six RNLI lifeguards were present on 31 May 2023, with one acting as a senior lifeguard.

One of the lifeguards who responded on that day, Rafael Packham, told the court he did not believe he had been given training on major incidents or mass rescues.

The inquest, in Bournemouth, is scheduled to resume on Monday.