Boy, 16, drowned in quarry after ignoring security guard and warning signs

A teenage boy drowned after he and a group of friends went swimming in an old quarry on the hottest day of the year, an inquest heard.

Dishone Lloyd, 16, was one of around 30 young people who trespassed into an area called Burnside Lakes, a private site in Cherry Hinton, near Cambridge.

The group ignored a security guard who told them to leave, as well as signs saying the lakes were dangerous.

While they were in the water, Dihone – who was not a strong swimmer – decided follow some of the other teenagers who had swum out to a platform.

He appeared to get in trouble half-way there and disappeared under the water.

Other swimmers tried to find him, but struggled due to poor visibility, the inquest in Huntingdon heard.

Emergency services were called, but his body wasn’t found till the following day.

On the day of the tragedy, August 12, 2024, temperatures had soared to 34.8C in the area.

Dishone, from Harlow in Essex, had told his mother, Ketema Davis, that he was going shopping and swimming in Cambridge but did not tell her the swimming would be in lakes.

Detective Inspector Susie Hine said in a statement read by the coroner, that Burnside Lakes is leased by a fishing club and is fenced off with ‘clear signage stating it is dangerous’.

She said the two lakes contain machinery left from the quarry and old fishing gear.

Dishone’s friend, Michael Willett, said in a statement read by the coroner: ‘We knew it was going to be hot and some of my friends knew about lakes in Cambridge where we could swim.’

He said he had not been before and travelled there by train, then on foot, going through a gap in a one fence and scaling a another.

Michael said a security officer told them to leave but they took no notice.

‘We were all jumping off cliffs into the water, using the orange circle things and floating around on them,’ he recalled.

He said some of the group swam to a platform further out and when Dishone decided to go too, he ‘got about halfway … I saw him panic, he started splashing about.’

The coroner said the youngster had “initially decided not to go (out to the platform), he stayed with his friends who, like him, were weaker swimmers – for some unknown reason we don’t know, he decided he would go”.

Michael said he saw the teenager go under the water.

He added that other swimmers tried to help him and they called the ambulance service.

Ms Hine said that the ‘poor water quality made it impossible to see him’.

His body was found the next day more than six metres below the surface, she said.

Security officer Mohb Sohrab, who was patrolling the site, said he made a 999 call to police at 2.56pm, when the group were trespassing but before the teenager had got into difficulty.

He said he was advised to dial 101 as it was not an emergency, which he did at 2.57pm, but eventually hung up after spending 14 minutes on hold.

Cambridgeshire Police said they were called by the ambulance service at 5.26pm reporting concerns for a teenager in the water.

The boy’s mother, Ms Davis, said: ‘Dishone decided to enter the site so I don’t want to blame anybody else for his death.’

But she said that ‘he’s not the first, second or third person to drown in that lake’.

Ms Davis continued: ‘If they (the police) had taken this seriously, maybe, his death would have been prevented.

‘I seriously think this lake needs draining as it’s going to happen again.’

Elizabeth Gray, area coroner for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, noted there was ‘significant security fencing around the site’ and security patrols.

She said the security officer ‘took the right approach to call the police’.

Ms Gray recorded that Dishone drowned and that his death was an accident.

She added that there ‘had been a suggestion he had a heart issue over the last year, however, this was checked and nothing was detected’.

The coroner offered her condolences to Ms Davis, who attended the inquest via a video-link, adding that it was a ‘terrible tragedy’.

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