Brothers drowned after getting out of their depth, blackpool inquest is told

Brothers Muhammad Azhar Shabbir, 18, and Ali Athar Shabbir, 16, drowned after being caught up to their chests in the rapidly-rising tide near St Annes pier on August 15 2020.
Brothers Muhammad Azhar Shabbir, 18, and Ali Athar Shabbir, 16Brothers Muhammad Azhar Shabbir, 18, and Ali Athar Shabbir, 16
Brothers Muhammad Azhar Shabbir, 18, and Ali Athar Shabbir, 16

The brothers were seen struggling in the water shortly after 6pm. Despite multiple 999 calls from family members and passers-by, it took approximately 40 minutes for lifeboats to arrive at the scene as crews struggled to locate them.Further investigation from Lancashire police revealed, in an inquest at Blackpool town hall on Wednesday, that signposts showing tide times in the area were out of date.A sign from Fylde Council, located at the car park near the Monteray Beach Hotel where the Shabbir family parked, should have displayed the times for August, but instead showed the times for June and July.It emerged that the person usually responsible for updating the sign was on leave at the time of the tragedy, and no arrangements had been made for a replacement during this time.Coroner Andrew Cousins heard that the brothers, who lived in Dewsbury, were visiting St Annes with family on August 15, and had gone into the sea with their 15-year-old cousin, Hamza, several times that day.At around 6pm the three boys went into the water for one last paddle before returning home.But when they tried to make their way back to shore, they found that the rising tide had filled gullies behind them.Hamza was able to make it back to shore, but Muhammad and Ali, who had 'limited swimming ability', disappeared beneath the waves as their family and passers-by tried to save them.Their mum, Taseem Shabbir, told the court how she stood on the phone to emergency services for around 40 minutes as the coastguard struggled to pinpoint their location.She said: "Obviously there's nobody to blame here, but I don't know why it took so long for emergency services to arrive and why they couldn't understand where we were."One witness, Joshua Nawab, ventured into the water to attempt to rescue the boys, who he said were about 10 to 15m away from dry land, but he was unable to reach them.Another witness, Dr Amjad Kapadi, called for an ambulance as he said: "The young boy (Hamza) was quite wet and distressed, and I was worried he might be having a hypothermic attack."Hamza was taken to hospital, where he was treated for hypothermia.On the beach, the coastguard and RNLI crews from Blackpool, Lytham and Southport continued to search for Muhammad and Ali. They stood down several hours later.The following day at around 3.20pm, the bodies of the two brothers were found about 20m from each other near the pier.A post mortem found they had both drowned.