Eddie Hall’s father has spoken out after an inquest found a botched emergency response contributed to the deaths of two young hikers in Snowdonia.
Stephen Long, father of 19-year-old Jayden Long, called the handling of his son’s final 999 call “incompetence,” reports said. The remark came after a coroner’s court heard that an abandoned emergency call from the two friends was not escalated properly, delaying rescue efforts by hours.
Hall, 20, and Long, 19, both from Dereham, Norfolk, died on February 18 while attempting Crib y Ddysgl, a 1,065-meter ridge connecting to the notorious Crib Goch scramble in Eryri, also known as Snowdonia National Park. The pair had experience walking in the Lake District and Peak District, but family members told police they had never previously hiked in the Welsh mountain range.
Philip Benbow, lead coordinator of Llanberis Mountain Rescue Team, testified at Gwynedd Coroner’s Court in Caernarfon that North Wales Police alerted him about an abandoned 999 call roughly three hours after it had been made. The call, placed from Long’s mobile phone, was traced to Crib y Ddysgl.
Benbow explained that the information provided was insufficient to deploy rescue teams immediately. Mountain rescue and a coastguard helicopter were eventually dispatched after families were contacted, but the search was suspended overnight when the men could not be located. It resumed at first light with search dogs.
At 10:46 the following morning, rescue team members spotted snow tracks that led them to the bodies approximately one mile from the summit of Yr Wyddfa. Both men had suffered multiple traumatic injuries from falls down the mountainous terrain.
Assistant coroner Sarah Riley stated she could not determine whether both fell simultaneously or if one had fallen while attempting to aid the other. She announced she would forward her conclusions to North Wales Police, giving the force 56 days to address her concerns about the failed escalation of the emergency call.
Detective Constable James Lloyd of North Wales Police’s professional standards department admitted in court that “the incident wasn’t escalated as it should have been.”
Benbow emphasized that the young men were critically under-equipped for winter conditions on the ridge. Though they wore spiked footwear, they carried no ice axes or crampons for the frozen, snow-covered terrain he described as an “extreme scramble.”
Jurgen Dissmann, chairman of Llanberis Mountain Rescue Team, told the Eastern Daily Press: “I would like to extend our most heartfelt condolences to the families and loved ones of the two men who have tragically lost their lives.”
He continued: “The team were tasked by North Wales Police and launched an extensive multi-agency operation in full winter conditions.”
The tragedy has intensified scrutiny of North Wales Police’s emergency call handling procedures, with the force now facing a formal deadline to respond to the coroner’s findings.