An inquest has opened into the deaths of three sisters who were found in the sea off Brighton beach, with a coroner hearing that police are still trying to establish exactly how they ended up in the water. Jane Adetoro, 36, Christina Walters, 32, and Rebecca Walters, 31, died on 13 May.
The hearing at Brighton & Hove Coroner's Court on Friday was told that Penelope Schofield offered condolences to the women’s father, Joseph, who attended by remote link. She told him, “It must be a difficult day for your family” and said, “The loss of your daughters in these tragic circumstances must be unbearable.”
The deaths have already drawn a large police inquiry. Sussex Police said officers had reviewed hundreds of hours of CCTV and spoken to a number of witnesses as they investigate how the three came to be in the water. The force has said it is satisfied there was no third-party involvement, but the recorded cause of death for the three women has still not been ascertained.
Jane Adetoro’s body was brought ashore by the RNLI, where emergency services were waiting, and she was declared dead at the scene. Christina Walters was recovered from the sea by an RNLI lifeboat, taken to the RNLI lifeboat station at Brighton Marina and pronounced deceased. Rebecca Walters’ body washed ashore near the Black Rock, and their father formally identified all three bodies.
The sisters had been living together in Greenford, London, and Sussex Police said it was also exploring a number of lines of inquiry to understand exactly who Jane, Christina and Rebecca were in the days before they died. Ch Supt Adam Hays had previously said the force would “leave no stone unturned” in its investigation, a line that now hangs over a case that police have described as a terrible tragedy.
Schofield said she hoped the inquest would “stops the social media speculation” around how they died, and Friday’s hearing may do what rumours could not: put the facts on the record. What it does not yet answer is the one question that matters most — how three sisters from Greenford came to die together in the sea off Brighton beach.
