{"id":27506,"date":"2025-04-22T10:11:48","date_gmt":"2025-04-22T10:11:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/potential-for-real-danger-hearing-told\/"},"modified":"2025-04-22T10:11:48","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T10:11:48","slug":"potential-for-real-danger-hearing-told","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/potential-for-real-danger-hearing-told\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Potential for real danger’ hearing told"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Lucy Vladev<\/span><\/p>\n
Reporting from<\/svg>Swansea Crown Court<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\"FamilyFamily photo<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Nicola Wheatley, Morgan Rogers, Paul O’Dwyer and Andrea Powell died in the incident in 2021<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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A court has heard there was an “obvious potential for real danger” during the sentencing of a paddleboard tour company owner after the deaths of four people.<\/p>\n

Paul O’Dwyer, 42, Andrea Powell, 41, Morgan Rogers, 24, and Nicola Wheatley, 40, drowned while paddleboarding<\/a> in “extremely hazardous conditions” on the River Cleddau, Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, in October 2021.<\/p>\n

Nerys Bethan Lloyd, 39, from Port Talbot, is the former owner of Salty Dog, the now-dissolved company who operated the tour. <\/p>\n

Ms Lloyd admitted to manslaughter<\/a> last month. It was revealed she did not have the correct qualifications to run the tour.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In court today Mr Watson, prosecuting, explained there was an “obvious potential for real danger”.<\/p>\n

He told the court that several members of the group had very limited experience.<\/p>\n

Adding that both Nerys Bethan Lloyd and her business partner Paul O’Dwyer were “not remotely qualified”, as they only had a “basic entry level qualification” which was not suitable for the tour they led.<\/p>\n

He explained that the pair “briefly stopped in the town centre to inspect the river” that day but “did not inspect the weir itself”, adding they knew there was a weir on that stretch of river having paddleboarded there in August.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Nerys Lloyd, wearing a dark coat and on the right, outside Haverfordwest Magistrates’ Court at a previous hearing <\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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The group of seven participants and co-instructor Paul O’Dwyer set off after 09:00 on the 30 October 2021.<\/p>\n

The court heard there had been heavy rain in the days before and “the river was in flood conditions” with a “visibly strong current”.<\/p>\n

“Of the eight individuals who went over the weir that day only four survived,” he said. <\/p>\n

Mr Watson explained there were desperate attempts of “bystanders who tried to throw lifelines into the weir”.<\/p>\n

The court heard that the intensity of the water that day “was the equivalent of two tons of water crossing the 1m of the weir crest every second”.<\/p>\n

The weather conditions meant that the difference between water levels above and below the weir on that day would have been “a drop of 1.3m”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lucy Vladev Reporting fromSwansea Crown Court Family photo Nicola Wheatley, Morgan Rogers, Paul O’Dwyer and Andrea Powell died in the incident in 2021 A court has heard there was an “obvious potential for real danger” during the sentencing of a paddleboard tour company owner after the deaths of four people. Paul O’Dwyer, 42, Andrea Powell, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27507,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[4661,3625,2851,3255,99],"class_list":["post-27506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uk","tag-danger","tag-hearing","tag-potential","tag-real","tag-told"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27506"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27508,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27506\/revisions\/27508"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}