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The partner of a woman who died in a paddleboarding incident in Wales has recalled the final time he spoke to her in his first interview since her death. Nicola Wheatley was one of four people who drowned in 'extremely hazardous conditions' during a stand-up paddleboarding excursion on the River Cleddau in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, in October 2021. The trip was run by former police officer Nerys Bethan Lloyd, who ran her own paddleboarding company. In April this year, the 40-year-old was jailed for 10 years and six months. Swansea Crown Court heard how Lloyd, who led the session while severe weather warnings were in force, had failed to warn the group about a dangerous weir with a 1.3m drop along the route. Speaking at the time of her sentencing, Darren Wheatley, Nicola’s husband, said the loss of his wife was due to the decisions of Lloyd, who he called a “stone-cold, heartless individual”. "Any sentence served by Nerys in prison will never ease the pain of losing Nicola, and our lives will never be the same again," he said in a statement outside court. In his first media interview since his wife's death, four years on from the fatal incident, Darren recalled the final phone call he had with Nicola, and the last words she said to her son on the morning of the paddleboarding trip. He told the BBC that Nicola, who had been gifted a stand-up paddleboard for her 40th birthday weeks before, had been excited for the trip. On the morning of Saturday, October 30, Nicola called her husband at 6.40am top check in on him and their two children, Oscar and their youngest Ffion, who was just two at the time. Darren recalled: "The weather was atrocious and I said to Nicola 'really you're going on the water?'... she said 'they've said to us it's safe, we can do it'." "Nicola's last words to Oscar were 'take care, my baby boy'... and that's the last I spoke to her," he added. Darren, who married Nicola in 2009, said he still holds a lot of anger towards Lloyd, who pleaded guilty to four counts of gross negligence manslaughter and one offence under the Health and Safety at Work Act in March this year. "We haven't even had an apology," he said. "We've had no acknowledgement of what she's done. Yes, she's put her hands up and pleaded guilty but she's never said anything to us as families." He added: "She's destroyed my family life, she's destroyed my children's family life... their mother will never come back." Lisa Rose, specialist prosecutor with the Crown Prosecution Service special crime division, said Lloyd "should not have taken participants on the water that day" due to the heavy flooding and fast-running water. Three other paddleboarders on the trip - Paul O’Dwyer, 42, Andrea Powell, 41, and Morgan Rogers, 24 - also died. At her sentencing hearing in April, the judge, Mrs Justice Stacey, outlined how Lloyd had failed to protect the four paddleboarders, who had been "cut off in their prime, with so much to live for and look forward to". She told Lloyd: "There was no safety briefing beforehand. None of the participants had the right type of leash for their board, and you didn’t have any next of kin details. "No consent forms were obtained. There had been no mention to the group of a weir on the river and how to deal with it and no discussion of the tidal river conditions whatsoever." The judge said there were Met Office weather warnings at that time, as well as a flood alert in place through Natural Resources Wales. She told Lloyd: "I accept you are desperately sorry for what happened that day. Your life has also been massively impacted. But being sorry for what happened is different from remorse." Detective Superintendent Cameron Ritchie of Dyfed-Powys Police said: "Nerys Lloyd’s catalogue of failures that led to the deaths of Andrea, Morgan, Nicola and Paul should never have happened. Their lives were needlessly lost as a result of her negligence."
