A former policewoman who led four paddleboarders to their deaths in a swollen river has been jailed for ten and a half years.
Nerys Lloyd, 39, organised the weekend paddleboard outing on the Cleddau River in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, which ended in tragedy in October 2021.
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.
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.
But she failed to warn the group of the large weir they were about to face in the water after taking the decision to go ahead with the excursion despite weather warnings for heavy rain.
Lloyd 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.
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.
Former police officer Nerys Lloyd, 39, was today jailed for 10 years and six months
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
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
Jailing Lloyd today for ten 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.
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 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.
Yesterday 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 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.’
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.’
Nerys Lloyd (pictured back centre wearing sunglasses) surrounded by friends and family as she arrived at Swansea Crown Court for her sentencing yesterday
The ill-fated expedition on the River Cleddau in Haverfordwest (pictured) is believed to be Britain’s worst ever paddleboarding accident
Lloyd was dismissed from South Wales Police the following month for an unrelated matter, the force said
Mrs Justice Mary Stacey delivering sentencing remarks in court
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.’
Afterwards Lisa Rose, Specialist Prosecutor with the Crown Prosecution Service Special Crime Division, said the case was an ‘awful tragedy’.
‘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,’ she added.
‘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 than can articulate the devastation this tragedy has caused, and I can only hope that this sentence provides a sense of justice for those affected.’
