Chilling photo captures deadly instructor paddleboarding through flooded river, moments before guiding group to tragic end

A chilling photo snapped the moment an instructor is seen safely paddleboarding down a fish pass just seconds before she led four daytrippers to their deaths in a swollen river. 

Former policewoman Nerys Lloyd, 39, organised the weekend paddleboard outing on the Cleddau River in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, which ended in tragedy.

Paddleboarders Morgan Rogers, 24, Nicola Wheatley, 40, Andrea Powell, 41, and co-instructor Paul O’Dwyer, 42, all died when they were dragged over the raging water on the weir in October 2021 in what the prosecution described as a ‘chaotic episode of some 20 seconds’.

Lloyd had not warned the participants about the weir despite weather warnings and a flood alert being in place – nor had she given them a safety briefing, a court heard.

After she was jailed for 10years and six months for gross negligence manslaughter yesterday, a photo of Lloyd was released showing her going down the fish pass just moments before the disaster. 

Bodycam video also showed Lloyd talking to a police officer about what had happened – telling her that the group ‘fell in’.

Separate body-worn video also showed emergency services arriving at the weir, showing the paddleboards below it and the water conditions on the river.

A clip of Lloyd speaking to police was captured near the location known as Fortune’s Frolic, on the east bank of the river, several hundred yards downstream from the weir.

Lloyd was heard saying: ‘Channel them down to the centre point, it’s a group paddle and they just didn’t go down the middle, so they went over the falls and they fell in.

‘Some of them went off their boards. I had to get back up, but because I was the first one down, I flew downstream and I was trying to get back to them, but I couldn’t.’

At the time the video was filmed, Lloyd was unaware that four people had died – and later attempted to blame her co-instructor Mr O’Dwyer, who was one of the victims.

Horrifyingly, the party were dragged over the 4ft weir and sucked into the churning torrent – trapped by the equivalent of nearly two tonnes of water crossing a one-metre-wide section every second. 

Any chance of escape from the intense pressure – which created a recirculating flow similar to a washing machine – was made even harder by the ‘unsuitable’ leashes attaching them to the boards, a judge said.

Lloyd, a suspended firearms officer, was the owner and director of Salty Dog Co Ltd when she led the Stand Up Paddle tour on the fast-flowing river.

She said ‘I’m going to jail for this’ just moments after finding out her co-instructor Mr O’Dwyer had died – and even attempted to lay blame on him, Swansea Crown Court heard.

Photographs from the scene showed the large weir with a fish ramp in the middle ‘only slightly wider than the width of a paddleboard’ and a concrete landing platform to the side.

Images taken a day after the tragedy show the foaming, swollen water at the bottom of the weir – in stark contrast to the calm condition of the river when Lloyd carried out a reconnaissance visit weeks earlier. 

Lloyd was able to navigate herself down the fish ramp on her board before ‘one by one’ each of the seven others were swept over the face of the weir and fell off their paddleboards, the court heard.

In emotional victim impact statements delivered to the court yesterday, the bereaved families criticised ‘arrogant’ and ‘cowardly’ Lloyd for her lack of remorse.

Lloyd, a former firearms officer for South Wales Police, appeared in the dock wearing a white shirt and dark trousers.

She stared straight ahead at the judge as her sentence was read out, only nodding her head and mouthing ‘thank you’.

Jailing her for 10 years and six months, Mrs Justice Stacey said the quartet who died were ‘cut off in their prime’.

She said ‘moving’ statements from their grieving families ‘I fear barely scratch the surface of their devastation at the loss of their loved ones’.

The judge said there were Met Office weather warnings at that time, as well as a flood alert in place through Natural Resources Wales. 

She highlighted how hours after the tragedy – in a conversation inadvertently recorded on her phone – Lloyd told her wife that it had been her own fault and she was ‘finished’. 

Earlier David Elias KC, defending, said Lloyd planned to take the group to the landing platform at the side to ‘get out and walk around’ the weir but the water had covered the area. 

‘Nerys Lloyd went down the fish ramp as a last resort once she realised she had no time to do anything else,’ he said.

But Mrs Justice Stacey rejected the explanation, saying it was ‘clear’ she had intended the group to go ‘through the weir’.

She said co-instructor Mr O’Dwyer had raised ‘valid concerns’ about the plan but that Lloyd ‘ignored’ him. 

‘Your interest appeared to be more of an exciting route rather than safety,’ she added.

The court heard she led the paid tour as an instructor with a ‘basic entry-level qualification’ after advertising the trip for £149 a person on Faceook with overnight accommodation and two ‘fully’ qualified instructors.

Lloyd, of Aberavon, South Wales, was suspended from her firearms duties at South Wales police at the time of the tragedy after accepting a caution for a fraudulent insurance claim involving a vehicle.

She pleaded guilty to four counts of gross negligence manslaughter and a Health and Safety at Work Act offence.

Prosecutor Mark Watson KC said Lloyd made the decision to ‘stick to the original’ route after she ‘rebuffed’ messages from neighbour Mr O’Dwyer about finding a different location.

The court heard the group were equipped with a paddleboard, a paddle and were attached to their boards with a traditional ankle leash.

Mr Watson said the group were ‘completely taken by surprise by the presence of the weir’ which dropped sharply down 1.3m to the river below in the churning white water.

He said the ‘intensity of the water flowing over the weir’ was equivalent to nearly two tonnes of water crossing a one-metre-wide section every second.

Mr Watson said: ‘In a chaotic episode of some 20 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.’

The court heard the group received no health and safety guidance before heading out on their paddleboards while no next of kin details were taken from them which led to a delay in contacting families.

Lloyd later told police she believed Mr O’Dwyer had given a health and safety briefing while she was using the toilets at Morrisons before going out on the water.

Mr Watson said: ‘However, 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.’

The court heard Mr O’Dwyer’s wife Ceri survived the paddleboard outing when she was kicked to safety by Andrea Powell, who then died.

Mr Watson said she was receiving treatment in the back of an ambulance at 11am when police arrived to tell her that her husband had died.

Emergency worker Jenny Heavens said she saw Lloyd arrive to console Mrs O’Dwyer before she put her head in her hands and said: ‘I’m going to jail for this.’

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.

In a personal statement to court, Lloyd said: ‘I take full blame for the mistakes that meant four special individuals are not here today. Two of which were my close friends.

‘I also want to acknowledge there were nine people on the river that day and every one of them is a victim.’

Mr Elias added Lloyd’s social media activity after the tragedy was her way of ‘putting on a brave face’ but it was ‘far from the truth.’

He said: ‘She was putting on a brave face.  Putting on a smile. In doing that as a way of coping that has made the suffering of those who were suffering more intense.’

Mrs Justice Stacey told Lloyd: ‘Let me make clear and I stress, you and Paul did not intend any harm to any of the participants who were your friends and you were horrified at what happened that day. There is absolutely no question of intent on your behalf and your criminality does not match the enormity of the tragedy.

‘But you chose to lead the group over a weir in conditions that could not have been more treacherous placing all of them in extreme danger.

‘You did not tell them that there would be a weir and you gave them no choice but to go over it, which inevitably caused this avoidable tragedy and loss of life.

‘Neither you nor Paul were qualified to lead such a tour and your whole approach to basic health and safety was abysmal when you knew better and had been trained both in the police force and as a volunteer with the RNLI to know better.’

The judge paid tribute to the families of those who died for their ‘dignity and courage in the midst of overwhelming grief’.

Darren Wheatley, husband of Nicola Wheatley, who died on the paddleboarding trip, said the loss of his wife has ‘devastated’ the family.

In a statement read outside court, Mr Wheatley said: ‘Losing Nicola has devastated our family and two young children lost their mammy.

‘Nicola died in circumstances that were completely avoidable and should not have happened. Decisions made by Nerys Lloyd, and only Nerys Lloyd, led to the four lives lost.

‘Any sentence served by Nerys in prison will never ease the pain of losing Nicola, and our lives will never be the same again.’

He added: ‘I hope Nerys takes the time whilst locked up to reflect and finally acknowledge the devastating impact of her decisions that day.

‘I’m grateful for the judge’s understanding of the gravity of what happened and what we have gone through as families.’

Theresa Hall, mother of Morgan Rogers, said she lost her ‘best friend’ when her daughter died on the trip.

Speaking outside Swansea Crown Court, Ms Hall said: ‘It’s been three long years and seven months since I lost my only daughter, Morgan, my best friend. Over three years since I laid eyes on her, over three years since I heard her infectious laugh.

‘I wish you would all have met her, my beautiful daughter, she was always smiling, always happy, always content in her life.

‘She didn’t want to rock the world, she wanted to live a respectful life, she would never hurt anyone, she was a gentle soul, always looking for the good in people.

‘Anyone that has lost a child by someone else’s doing will know that there is no pain like it. That day I lost a piece of myself, I will never be the same person without my Morgan.

‘I can never forgive Nerys Lloyd for what she has taken from me.’

Ms Hall said that because of Lloyd’s failure to get next of kin details, it was over 12 hours before she was informed of her daughter’s death.

‘Even then, it was another 12 hours before I formally identified her myself,’ she said.

‘My precious girl was not important to Nerys Lloyd. She couldn’t give police Morgan’s details, as she hadn’t even bothered to get Morgan’s emergency contact details in case of an accident. That was despicable.

‘Nerys Lloyd’s arrogance spoke volumes for the person she is and the attitude that she showed towards the people she had in her care that day, the lack of concern is shocking.’

Detective Superintendent Cameron Ritchie, of Dyfed-Powys Police, described the paddleboarding tragedy as ‘completely avoidable’ following the sentencing of Lloyd.

‘The incident that took place in Haverfordwest on October 30, 2021, was an extremely tragic case resulting in the completely avoidable deaths of four people,’ he said.

‘We heard in court how this incident devastated four families, and we hope that lessons will be learned that prevent this from ever happening again.’

Lisa Rose, specialist prosecutor with the Crown Prosecution Service special crime division, said: ‘Nerys Lloyd should not have taken participants on the water that day; the heavy flooding had left the river running very fast and it was beyond the remit of a beginner’s tour.

‘The weir itself was in an extremely hazardous condition, with a high potential for loss of life, and all the possible exit points nearby had been flooded out.

‘Lloyd was not qualified to take inexperienced paddleboarders out in such conditions, and her actions fell very far below the standard expected of a paddleboard instructor and activity planner.

‘The tour could have started at a different point, to avoid the weir, or been cancelled altogether but Lloyd made the final decision to go ahead with the event.

‘There are no words that can articulate the devastation this tragedy has caused, and I can only hope that this sentence provides a sense of justice for those affected.’

And Health and Safety Executive (HSE) inspector Helen Turner said: ‘The victims placed their trust in Lloyd to deliver a safe and enjoyable paddle, but through her incompetence, carelessness and complacency she failed to plan or assess the obvious risk at the weir or to take even basic safety measures.

‘By not discussing the hazards on the route Lloyd robbed the participants of the opportunity to make a reasoned decision on their own participation on the day.’