Former police officer loses bid to challenge sentence for paddleboarder deaths

Jess Glass, Press Association Law Editor

A former police officer who ran a paddleboarding company has lost a Court of Appeal bid to challenge her prison sentence after four people drowned during an excursion on a river in south-west Wales.

Nerys Lloyd, 41, led a stand-up paddleboarding tour on the River Cleddau in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, in October 2021 despite “extremely hazardous conditions”, with weather warnings in place.

Paul O’Dwyer, 42, Andrea Powell, 41, Morgan Rogers, 24, and Nicola Wheatley, 40, all died as they were swept over, becoming trapped under the fast-moving water.

Lloyd, who was jailed for 10 years and six months in April 2025, failed to warn the group about a dangerous weir with a 1.3m drop along the route, or how to navigate it, Swansea Crown Court previously heard.

Lloyd, from Aberavon, south Wales, was the owner and sole director of Salty Dog Co Ltd, which organised the tour.

She pleaded guilty to four counts of gross negligence manslaughter and one offence under the Health and Safety at Work Act.

At the Court of Appeal on Friday, lawyers for Lloyd made a bid to bring an appeal against her sentence.

David Elias KC, for Lloyd, said the judge should have reduced the starting point for how the sentence would be calculated.

He said: “There were very significant and powerful mitigating factors that we say should have led the judge to reduce the eight-year starting point to less than seven.”

The barrister later said there was “far too great a leap” when the judge increased the sentence to 15 years to reflect the four deaths, before the term was reduced to factor in Lloyd’s guilty pleas.

However, Lady Justice May, Mr Justice Martin Spencer and Judge Martin Picton refused the bid to bring an appeal.

Lady Justice May said: “It is not arguable that a sentence of 10 years and six months was manifestly excessive,” adding the sentencing judge “clearly had all the mitigating features in mind”.