Horror of seeing rocks fall and kill my girl, by mother

A MOTHER’s desperate screams seconds before massive boulders tumbled down a cliff crushing her nine-year-old daughter to death were recalled at an inquest yesterday.

Holly Forster had time enough to cry out “big rock, big rock” and the pair ran for their lives.

But her daughter Harriet Forster was not fast enough and a boulder struck and killed her.

Harriet was on holiday with her mother at an aunt’s cottage in the picturesque North Yorkshire fishing village of Staithes and was playing on the beach, rock-pooling.

“Haunted” Mrs Forster, 47, who is suffering from post traumatic stress and was unable to attend the inquest, said in a statement she heard the noise of small pebbles falling as Harriet tested out her camera.

“I looked up at the cliff and saw different size stones falling and one larger bit of rock was 2ft by a bit less than 2ft, I saw it falling,” she said.

“I couldn’t see how far the rock had fallen. I could see the sky between the rock and the cliff. There was time enough to say ‘big rock, big rock’.”

They both set off running for the sea but could not avoid the downfall.

She added: “I felt rocks hit me, one landed on my head and one landed on my back and hit my rucksack.

“I was on the floor and Harriet was on the floor. Harriet was in a cleft in the rock, with her head towards the cliffs and her feet towards the sea.”

The distraught mother attempted Police tape seals off the beach at Staithes, North Yorkshire, after Harriet, inset, was killed by a falling boulder in August resuscitation and was helped by off-duty police officer Richard Isaac and off-duty paramedic Sally Payne.

Despite their frantic efforts, they could not save Harriet.

In an emotional letter to the coroner Mrs Forster said she was “haunted day and night” by the “horror” of Harriet’s death on August 8.

The inquest at Scarborough town hall heard how Harriet, from Westonon-the-Green, near Oxford, died after going rock-pooling under the cliffs at Seaton Garth, where the public were allowed to walk despite 55,000 rockfalls in the area over the past two years.

Harriet’s mother revealed she had not seen the sign on display nearby which warns: “Beware, dangerous cliffs”.

The inquest heard Harriet died from “overwhelming multiple injuries” to her head, chest and abdomen.

Mrs Forster said in a letter to the coroner: “The sight and sounds of that day are never far from my mind.

“I would swap places with her in a heartbeat.” Scarborough Borough Council engineer John Woodhead said “nothing had been done” since the tragedy to prevent the public walking beneath the crumbling cliffs.

Coroner Michael Oakley ruled Harriet’s death was accidental and said it was “one of the most tragic incidents” he had dealt with in 40 years.

He recommended extra signs be erected on the beach along with a barrier but added : “It clearly is simply a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”