A FATHER described the moment his daughter’s body was recovered after two tragic drownings on Bournemouth beach.

Sunnah Khan, 12, and Joe Abbess, 17, died after they, and eight other people, were caught in a rip tide on May 31 last year.

During an inquest into their deaths at Dorset Coroner’s Court, a statement from Sunnah’s father, Asim Khan, was read out by representative Dr Anton Van Dellen.

On the day of the incident Mr Khan drove Sunnah, her aunt, and two other children to Bournemouth, from their home in Buckinghamshire, for a beach day.

He said the family have visited the town for years, usually as a group of 18, but decided to visit in a small group due to a family wedding abroad.

They arrived at around 11am, with Sunnah and the other children dipping in and out of the sea throughout the day.

During the afternoon, Sunnah had been by the seafront for around an hour when Mr Khan saw a commotion with lifeguards pulling someone out of the water.

Around 30 minutes later the lifeguards began evacuating the beach, which prompted Mr Khan to look for the children.

“I put all the stuff down and told kids to stay while I found the others,” said Mr Khan.

“I wasn’t worried at this point it hadn’t crossed my mind that something had happened to them.”

Mr Khan then saw two of the children laying on the sand, one with a breathing bag on their face, but Sunnah was nowhere to be seen.

When he asked the lifeguards where the third child was, he was told: “This is all the people in the sea, they’re all out.”

Mr Khan added: “I said this is not all the people because my child is missing.

“I said they needed to go back out there to find my child.”

He said the lifeguards then “started panicking” and returned to the water.

After another 10 minutes a coastguard told Mr Khan that two people were still missing and that they were searching for them.

“I saw a person wash up, I hoped it was and wasn’t Sunnah at the same time.”

He said that he asked if it was his child and despite emergency services not confirming, ‘he could tell by his face that it was’.

After 10 to 15 minutes Sunnah was put into an ambulance and Mr Khan followed them to Poole General Hospital.

However, while at the hospital doctors said nothing more could be done, that Sunnah had drowned, and they could not restart her heart.

Mr Khan said he has a number of concerns about how the beach is monitored following Sunnah’s death.

"I am really concerned that no one was looking for Sunnah before I mentioned that she was missing.

"Only then did they start looking for my child.

"The other children said that when they had been pulled from the water, they told the lifeguards that Sunnah was still out there."

He added that he believes all the lifeguards were doing their best but said: “I heard they were mostly young, teenagers really.”

Mr Khan said that Sunnah's death has been a "massive loss" to everyone and that she was “like a sun, always shining.”

"Something has to be done to make sure this doesn’t happen again."

Sunnah’s mother, Stephanie Williams, described her daughter as a “force of nature” who was fiercely protective of her family.

Following her death, Sunnah’s mother said: "How did it take 50 minutes to locate Sunnah in 5ft of water?”

She also slammed BCP Council for the lack of signage and information on the dangers of rip tides on the seafront.

"Rips are obviously a danger on the beach so why does no one deem it important.

"Sunnah deserved a long and fulfilled life and that has been taken away from her."

Joe’s mother, Vanessa Abbess, read an emotional statement to the court and said: “We were privileged to have him in our lives for 17 years and we are all so sorry that he will never be able to fulfil his dreams and ambitions.”

Mrs Abbess said Joe, who was a trainee chef, had his life “snatched away” from him.

On the day of the incident Mrs Abbess dropped her son at the train station where he was meeting his friends to travel to Bournemouth.

At around 11.30am she received a text from Joe saying that he had gotten to the beach, but she did not hear from him again.

At around 3pm she texted him but got no reply, which she later found out was the time the incident began to unfold.

“Perhaps it was an intuition, maybe something had alerted me in the depths of my mind that I felt I needed to message Joe to check in on him,” said Mrs Abbess.

At 4.27pm she received a panicked call from Joe’s friend saying that he was in the sea before another call from a different friend saying, ‘the waves had gotten crazy’ and that they were struggling to get Joe out.

She was later told by an A&E consultant not to rush to the hospital because ‘there was nothing more they could do for Joe’.

“I was devastated and so shocked at this news, I fell to my knees and sobbed, I was on my own and utterly heartbroken that Joe had died.

“It was so hard to believe, as he had left home healthy and strong just a few hours earlier.”

“Our family used to love beaches and found the sound of waves calming but now hearing this sends shivers down our spines.”

Mrs Abbess questioned the number of lifeguards on the beach and why safe swimming flags were installed on that area of the beach.

Both families are now campaigning to improve sea safety education in schools.

Home Office forensic pathologist Dr Basil Purdue found both Joe and Sunnah’s medical cause of death to be drowning and said it was impossible to know what time it took place.

The hearing continues.