A paddleboard business owner has been jailed for 10 years and six months for gross negligence manslaughter following the deaths of four people in 2021.
In March, we published the story that Nerys Lloyd, a paddleboard company owner, had pleaded guilty to gross negligence manslaughter after Nicola Wheatley, Morgan Rogers, Paul O'Dwyer and Andrea Powell died after being taken out paddleboarding in what was described as "extremely hazardous conditions".
Case background
Lloyd was sentenced on 23 April 2025, where the court heard that on 30 October 2021, Lloyd, with the assistance of Paul O'Dwyer planned a trip organised through Lloyd's business. However, there had been heavy flooding and severe weather warnings were in place, which Lloyd did not pay attention to.
The river was running fast, and Haverfordwest Town Weir was in an extremely hazardous condition. Lloyd did not check the weir or provide a safety briefing to the participants or inform them of the presence of the weir. In addition to this:
Despite this, Lloyd facilitated the paddleboarders entering the water and led the group along the river.
As the group approached the weir, apart from Lloyd, all the participants were pulled over the top into its base and became trapped before being ejected from the weir. Four of the participants survived. O'Dwyer, who initially exited the river safely re-entered the water in an attempt to rescue the others, but was immediately dragged over the top. The four victims died as a result of drowning/immersion.
A joint investigation by Dyfed-Powys Police and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that Lloyd was not correctly qualified to lead a stand-up paddleboard river tour.
Guidance and training for water sports instructors and participants is available from national sport governing bodies, including the British Stand-Up Paddle Association, British Canoeing and the British Kite Surfing Association. Anyone organising adventure activities for under-18s must be licensed by the Adventure Activities Licensing Authority.
Gross negligence manslaughter
The starting point for one offence of gross negligence manslaughter under the guideline in high culpability category B is eight years with a range of six to 12 years. If just one person had died from this gross negligence Lloyd's sentence after trial would have been seven years, to reflect her mitigation and lack of aggravating factors.
But the judge had to sentence Lloyd for the death of four people. As the sentencing council totality guidelines make clear, it will often be the case that the notional sentence for any single offence will not adequately reflect the overall offending. Ordinarily, some upward adjustment is required may have the effect of going outside the category range appropriate for a single offence. The judge stated that it is not just or proportionate to simply multiply the notional sentence for one, by four. The judge had to sentence Lloyd to reflect all the offending behaviour that led to the four deaths by applying the totality principle, which is done by assessing the overall harm and Lloyd's culpability, and the mitigating factors the judge identified.
The judge stressed that Lloyd and O'Dwyer did not intend any harm to any of the participants: "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, as has already been set out".
Health and safety offence
The mischief addressed by the health and safety offence is the risk of harm rather than the harm itself, which was caused by Lloyd's breach of the statutory duty to take care. For this, there are different victims to the gross negligence manslaughter offences.
The victims to the health and safety offence are those who survived, who were exposed to the very high risk of death because of Lloyd's failures: "The effects of that experience were profound and the level of their continuing trauma and survivors’ guilt was apparent".
Although this offence arises out of the same incident, it addresses a different aspect of Lloyd's offending, with different victims and in order to do justice to the case for this offence, Lloyd must receive a consecutive sentence.
Sentencing
The judge imposed a total sentence of 10 years and six months. Given the whole failure in the face of the overwhelming and obvious evidence of how highly dangerous it was, and taking everything into account, if Lloyd had been found guilty by a jury after a trial, the shortest sentences commensurate with the overall gravity of the four manslaughter offences would have been concurrent sentences of 15 years imprisonment.
Since Lloyd pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity, she is entitled to a one-third deduction, so the sentences the judge imposed on Lloyd for each of counts one to four run concurrently with eachother is 10 years immediate custody.
For the health and safety offence the judged assessed Lloyd's culpability for this offence as being very high under the sentencing council guidelines by her flagrant disregard for her duty to take reasonable care, and as there was a high likelihood of death, it is level A harm.
The starting point is 18 months' custody with a category range of one to two years' custody. There were no aggravating features additional to the factors that are taken into account in the assessment of category, but Lloyd had the mitigation of a lack of previous convictions and positive character testimonials. A notional starting point after trial would have been 15 months, but the judge made a further deduction reflecting totality with the manslaughter sentences to nine months, then deduct for Lloyd's guilty plea to reach a final sentence of six months' custody.
Lloyd will be released from custody no later than two-thirds of the way through her sentence, and the remainder will be served on licence in the community.
Case comments
HSE Inspector, Helen Turned, said: "Nerys Lloyd was solely responsible for the decision to enter the water while the river was in flood, and for the attempt to take even inexperienced paddlers over the weir. This was completely reckless and the risk of death was foreseeable".
"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".
"Health and safety law is not a barrier to adventurous activities, which are enjoyed by people every day in safety. Organisers must take proportionate action to recognise and manage real risk".
Senior Investigation Officer Detective Superintendent of Dyfed-Powys Police, Cameron Ritchie, said: "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. 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".
"This has been a complex and extensive investigation and I’d like to thank my colleagues at Dyfed-Powys Police, the Health and Safety Executive and the Crown Prosecution Service for their professionalism and diligence to secure this outcome".
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