Kyra Hill’s parents say regulations ‘would save children’s lives’

The parents of an 11-year-old girl who drowned at an aqua park have called for tighter regulations so other families do not have to “bury their children”.

Kyra Hill got into difficulty in a designated swimming area at Liquid Leisure near Windsor, Berkshire, in August 2022.

In May, an inquest concluded she was unlawfully killed following gross breaches in health and safety, including the lack of an emergency plan or an adequate risk assessment.

Her parents, Heather Parker and Leonard Hill, said regulations such as the requirement for emergency plans and clear signage could prevent future unavoidable drownings at water parks.

“There’s no way that this should be happening in 2025 in the UK – it shouldn’t be happening to our children,” said Mr Hill.

Kyra was attending a birthday party at the Berkshire aqua park on 6 August 2022 when she went missing.

The inquest heard a 17-year-old lifeguard spotted her struggling and dived in after her, but she said visibility was “terrible” and she “couldn’t see anything”.

Despite being told Kyra had got out, the lifeguard told colleagues and a manager quickly attended. Emergency services were called 37 minutes after Kyra was last seen.

She was found at about 17:10 BST, more than an hour after she was last seen, and pronounced dead in hospital.

Ms Parker said the inquest was “one breach after another”.

“Some of it was a shock but you kind of knew that there was something wrong,” she said.

Mr Hill said the inquest was “entirely shocking”.

“There was no adequate risk assessment, no emergency plan in place for if somebody became submerged under water, and I’d say the fact that your lifeguards are only trained for surface rescue and are not trained to go beyond the surface to recover somebody, that’s alarming,” he said.

“To hear those things unveiled in the inquest, it gives you some of the answers as to why this has happened – why Kyra was in that water for two hours, drowning and dying.”

He said he knew his daughter was dead as soon as he got the call.

“As I got that phone call, it was like my heart just got ripped in half straight away and slowly along the drive it was tearing into smaller pieces,” he said.

“You know your daughter has gone to an aqua park where the biggest risk to life is drowning… when you get that phone call there’s only one place that Kyra could be and it’s under the water.”

He said the outcome of the inquest “makes you think”.

“Once going through the inquest you see that this is potentially happening across the country,” he said.

He said aqua parks needed to be more tightly governed, adding he and Ms Parker wanted to protect other parents from the “torment” of losing a child.

“We’ve heard from the inquest that Kyra was unlawfully killed. What happens next?” he said.

“Is it just ‘Kyra was unlawfully killed’ and then the next child who comes along, she’ll be unlawfully killed as well, and these places can still operate?”

He said: “Parents should not be having to go and look at their child laying on a slab in a morgue, laying stiff and freezing cold, all because they wanted to have a fun day out.”

He said Kyra had “a very big heart” and would not want other children to suffer in the way she did.

“Kyra would always protect people so right now I’m sure, wherever she is, she definitely would not want anybody else to experience what she had to experience,” he said.

“She would definitely be pressing to get these things changed… we don’t want our children dying.

“We don’t want parents to bury their children and it needs to change.”

The BBC has approached Liquid Leisure and the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG) for comment.

The MHCLG previously said it was important that lessons were learnt from Kyra’s inquest, and that aqua park operators must adhere to the health and safety regulations under the Health and Safety at Work Act.