Hotel pool death couple were on birthday break

A young couple found dead in a swimming pool at a hotel were there on a surprise birthday break.

Josephine Newahun Foday, 22, from south London, was discovered in the water at Down Hall Country House Hotel in Hatfield Heath, Essex, with Komba Kpakiwa, 31, from Erith in Kent, on Saturday evening. Ms Foday was at the hotel to celebrate her birthday the previous day.

Her grandmother, Theresa Farma, said shop manager Mr Kpakiwa had planned the getaway to surprise his student girlfriend.

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Eleanor McGann, deputy coroner for Essex, opened and adjourned an inquest into the deaths at New Bridge House in Chelmsford yesterday.

The brief hearing heard the pair were found floating face down at about 7.30pm in the water. Witnesses, including hotel guests, had seen them alive in swimming gear 15 minutes earlier.

Police said the deaths, consistent with drowning, were not being treated as suspicious.

Speaking from her home in Plumstead, south east London, which she shared with her granddaughter, Miss Farma said: “She was a lovely girl, happy and smiley. She was very quiet, she went to church and did not drink alcohol or smoke. She wanted to be a nurse. To help people.”

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Miss Farma said her granddaughter moved to England from Sierra Leone in 2001 and had recently been introduced to Mr Kpakiwa.

“I met him here at my house,” Miss Farma, 61, said. “He was very nice. The birthday trip was a surprise.”

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