Philip Dayle appears as junior counsel for the families in inquests into the death of five young men from London at Camber Sands beach on 24 August 2016. The inquest into the death of another young man, who died at Camber Sands beach on 24 July 2016, has also been joined. The combined inquests are listed for two weeks at Hastings Coroner’s Court before Senior Coroner for East Sussex Mr Alan Craze, beginning 26 June 2017.
At the pre-inquest review of 14 March 2017, Senior Coroner Craze said that he would be instructing his own expert to look at public safety measures at Camber Sands beach. A report commissioned by Rother District Council notes that “Camber Sands has a spatially variable beach gradient, meaning that beach users can find themselves in deeper waters very quickly” and that the beach has “an incoming tide that is faster than normal for UK beaches”, making the risks “not apparent to an inexperienced beach user on first arrival”.
The report further notes that the beach is attended by upwards of 20,000 people on a summer day; and that there were no permanently appointed life guards at Camber Sands for the 2016 beach season.
Philip Dayle is a member of the Inquests, Public Inquiries and Coronial Law Group at No5.
