Laurence Dollimore
THE British girl who drowned in a Costa del Sol swimming pool on Christmas Eve was wearing a swimming cap AND goggles, it has been revealed.
The details, from a new report accessed by ITV, suggest nine-year-old Comfort knew how to swim when she perished alongside her father Gabriel Diya, 52, and brother Praise Emmanuel, 16, at the CLC World Resort pool in Fuengirola.
It comes after the mother Olubunmi Diya insisted the tragic trio knew how to swim, insisting there was ‘something wrong’ with the pool.
Meanwhile, an investigation blamed the deaths on a ‘lack of swimming expertise’, ruling them a ‘simple accident’.
Now a new report drawn from three investigating teams has revealed more about the on-going police investigation.
For starters, the pool temperature was around 16C, according to police divers. They say this is relatively low for swimming.
Secondly, Comfort’s swimming cap, which was retrieved from the pool, had her handwritten name inside it and she was also wearing goggles, which, according to the family’s lawyer, shows she was used to swimming.
Allen Wilson, an international swimming pool inspector, has backed concerns from the family that the pool may have had a fault.
Wilson pointed to a potential issue with the single drainage outlet at the bottom of the pool.
European guidelines and the Federation of Tour Operators standards state there should be two drains, two metres apart.
They warn that a single outlet can cause a strong vortex.
Wilson told ITV News: “The problem if you have just one single drainage hole is entrapment.
“You’ve got a huge velocity of water going out that way; people will get dragged down, and they would not be able to escape from there.
“There’s been numerous incidents all over the world resulting from excessive suction through the bottom outlet.”
More to follow…
