Protection missing on wall from which girl, 14, fell to her death

Missing safety features on a sea wall in Devon would have mitigated the risk of the death of a Ukrainian refugee schoolgirl who suffered a fatal fall, a Network Rail official has told an inquest.

- Jamie Grierson

Albina Yevko, 14, who came to the UK from the war-torn country in 2022, was reported missing on the evening of 4 March last year and was later found unconscious on a beach in Dawlish. She was airlifted to hospital in Exeter where she died the next morning, an inquest in Exeter heard.

Network Rail owns the wall, which people use as a coastal path, and it carries out "regular inspection and repair", the inquest heard. Yesterday, Robert Warren, Network Rail's head of route safety, health and environment in the south-west, revealed seven other people died falling from the wall between 1974 and 1996.

He told the inquest that hand railings were considered following a risk assessment of the wall in 2015.