An ‘arrogant’ former policewoman who led four paddleboarders to their deaths on a swollen river had been suspended from the force for fraud and was not ‘remotely qualified’ for the ‘dangerous’ conditions, a court heard today.
Nerys Lloyd, 39, organised the weekend expedition for eight paddleboarders on the River Cleddau in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, despite ‘severe weather warnings’.
Four of them – Morgan Rogers, 24, Nicola Wheatley, 40, Andrea Powell, 41, and co-instructor Paul O’Dwyer, 42, – ‘needlessly’ died after becoming trapped under a weir on the fast-flowing river, Swansea Crown Court heard.
Today it emerged that firearms officer Lloyd had been suspended from South Wales Police at the time of the tragedy for making a fraudulent car insurance claim.
She had received approval for her paddleboard business from force bosses – but this was revoked when she went off work with ‘stress and anxiety’ with no sick note.
Prosecutor Mark Watson KC said that, in the days prior to the excursion, Lloyd rebuffed Mr O’Dwyer’s suggestions they take a different route because of heavy rain and then failed to give the group any warnings about the weir.
CCTV footage captured the party, who had paid £149 each for the overnight trip, setting off at 9am on October 30, 2021 before being ‘propelled’ along the water at speed.
Mr Watson said experienced paddleboarder Lloyd managed to manoeuvre herself over the weir but ‘one by one’ the three women following her fell off.
Nerys Lloyd, 39, admitted the manslaughter of four paddleboarders who drowned after getting caught up in a flooded weir in hazardous conditions
Lloyd organised the weekend paddleboard outing on the Cleddau River in Haverfordwest
The intensity of the water was equivalent to nearly two tonnes crossing a one-metre-wide crest of the weir every second, the barrister added.
At the rear, Mr O’Dwyer saw the tragedy unfolding and initially decided against attempting it himself.
However, moments later he went in to rescue the trio but was ‘carried over the weir and into the turbulent water below’.
Mr Watson said the ‘needless loss of life’ occurred despite desperate efforts of bystanders on the river bank, who threw life lines into the water.
Lloyd, sole owner and director of Port Talbot based outdoor pursuits firm Salty Dog Co Ltd, admitted four counts of gross negligence manslaughter and a Health and Safety at Work Act offence. She is facing a maximum life sentence.
The court heard she was dismissed from South Wales Police a month after the tragedy for an unrelated matter and was later employed by a community charity, which listed her interests as paddle boarding.
Mr Watson said she and Mr O’Dwyer had completed two ‘basic entry-level qualification’ courses which enabled them to run stand-up paddleboard tours, in April 2021, but they were ‘wholly unsuited for a river with hazards such as a weir.’
The Stand-up Paddleboarding Safety and Rescue course and the Stand-up Paddleboarding Foundation Instructor course were for ‘inland sheltered, not moving water’ or ‘flat water and coastal activities,’ but did not qualify them to take tours on ‘rivers in flow’ or activities ‘near a weir,’ he added.
Health worker Nicola Wheatley (pictured) was among four people to drown in the tragedy
Paul O’Dwyer (pictured) was one of four who ‘needlessly died’ after becoming trapped under a weir
Although the courses detailed dangers associated with using ankle leashes and emphasised the need for quick release chest or waist mounted leashes in flowing rivers, the inexperienced paddleboarders were ‘attached to their boards by way of a traditional ankle leash,’ Mr Watson said.
An official report later said the four victims were trapped under the weir by ‘hydraulic towback with no means of escape’.
The court heard Lloyd and Mr O’Dwyer had briefly inspected the river on the day of the tragedy but did not look at the weir itself. It only had a narrow fish ramp and dropped sharply – having ‘obvious potential for real danger’, Mr Watson said.
In emotional victim impact statements, the bereaved families criticised ‘arrogant’ and ‘cowardly’ Lloyd for her lack of remorse.
Theresa Hall, mother of Ms Rogers, said Lloyd ‘guided Morgan to her death’ and the ‘physical and mental pain (of grief) is too much to bear.’
She told the defendant she could never forgive her, adding: ‘You took Morgan’s hopes and dreams, Morgan’s wedding day, Morgan’s children – you took Morgan’s life for nothing more than profit.
‘Morgan died a horrendous death because of your negligent action and arrogance.’
Ms Rogers’ father, Robert, described his only child as a ‘warm, courageous, happy, shiny star’ and compared his grief to an open wound that would never heal.
Morgan Rogers (pictured), 24, also died in the paddleboarding tragedy on October 30 2021
Andrea Powell was the fourth member of the group to pass away after the tragic outing
Nicola Wheatley’s husband Darren branded Lloyd ‘a coward’ and ‘a disgraced business owner.’
He said that on Christmas Day 2021, while his two young children, aged two and seven, ‘cried all day’ without their mother, Lloyd was posting pictures of herself visiting Christmas lights with her family and friends.
Mr Wheatley, who suffered a breakdown and was diagnosed with PTSD, said: ‘You have presented yourself as a stone-cold, heartless individual. You have shown no remorse, no regret, no sympathy or any acknowledgment of Nicola’s death.
‘You have continued to live your life as is nothing ever happened. Nerys Lloyd, you are a vile person and you disgust me.’
A tearful Mark Powell, husband of Andrea Powell, said his wife was ‘happy and content’ when she left to go paddleboarding but the next time he saw her was with cuts and bruises all over her body in a coma in hospital.
She died after her life-support machine was switched off and her organs helped save the lives of five people.
Mr Powell, who has been forced to give up his £55,000-a-year job after being diagnosed with depression, said it was ‘heart-breaking’ to hear their son, Finn, say ‘he wants to die so he can be with his mother again’ and he could never forgive Lloyd’s ‘lack of remorse’.
‘How can a serving police officer allow this to happen? She was unqualified and deceitful and not fit to have my wife’s life in her hands,’ he added.
Nerys Lloyd (pictured back centre wearing sunglasses) surrounded by friends and family as she arrived at Swansea Crown Court for her sentencing
The ill-fated expedition on the River Cleddau in Haverfordwest (pictured) is believed to be Britain’s worst ever paddleboarding accident
Ceri O’Dwyer, wife of Paul O’Dwyer, who survived the tour after being pushed to safety by Ms Powell, said she was ‘tortured’ by the death of ‘the kindest man’ with ‘the biggest heart’.
In a statement read on her behalf, she said Mr O’Dwyer made a ‘devastating mistake’ but ‘died trying to save others’.
She said Lloyd, of Aberavon, South Wales, was once her friend but had tried to ‘shift blame’ onto her husband.
She told Lloyd: ‘Grief is in our household every single day. You carried on as if nothing ever happened.
‘Nerys, I do not believe you will ever learn from this, you’ve had three years to show remorse and yet you have continued like this is an inconvenience to your life.’
Mr O’Dwyer’s father, John, called the grief ‘relentless’, adding: ‘Everything is hollow. He was a true friend.’
Former cop Nerys Lloyd – who had told Mr O’Dwyer ‘maybe stick to the original’ when he questioned her plan – said ‘I’m going to jail for this’ just moments after the river tragedy.
Mr O’Dwyer’s wife Ceri was taking part in the excursion when she managed to escape from the weir before spotting the body of Nicola Wheately floating towards her face down.
The court heard Lloyd started CPR -on Mrs Wheatley before she stopped to say: ‘I’m finished, I’m finished’ while putting her hands to her head.
Mr Watson said Lloyd blamed Mr O’Dwyer and claimed she believed he had carried out a health and safety briefing while she used the toilets at Morrisons before going into the river.
Mr Watson said: ‘All of the surviving participants are clear in their evidence that no health and safety briefing whatsoever took place before they entered the water, and there was no mention by anyone of a weir, or a fish pass, or of any need to exit the water to go around any weir.’
Lloyd was dismissed from South Wales Police the following month for an unrelated matter, the force said
Mr Watson said all of the participants were ‘completely taken by surprise by the presence of the weir’.
He said: ‘In a chaotic episode of some twenty seconds, they were all carried over the weir crest by the strong current; five of them to the right of the fish pass and two to the left; and they all fell off of their boards into the powerful hydraulic below the weir.
‘A number of the boards can be seen being held close to weir and tossed or smashed around by the water circulating below; and these boards were attached by leashes to the ankles of the participants.’
The court heard in a pre-sentence report Lloyd ‘did appear to attribute quite a number of the poor, reckless decisions and lapses in organisation’ to Mr O’Dwyer.
She was also recorded in the background of a voicemail message at the scene saying: ‘It’s my fault 100% I probably shouldn’t have gone on the water.
‘Paul was like no, its fine its fine, so I said what am I doing here, he said ‘it’s fine’ I went down first and I just turned around and they just all like fell over.
‘I was like ‘s***’ and I couldn’t get back to them because it was coming so fast I was trying to get back up to see.’
She also failed to carry out risk assessments or obtain next of kin details for the victims – leading to a delay in contacting family members.
The court heard Mr O’Dwyer died after bystanders threw a lifebuoy but he was unable to grab it when the line became tangled in one of the paddleboards.
The two-day hearing continues tomorrow.
