Harry Sykes was on a college trip with the Halifax Elite Rugby Academy when he died on September 5, 2018. Mystery surrounds how he met his death in a lake while on tour with his academy in the south of France, with an inquest this week hearing that none of his team-mates, or anyone else, saw the sequence of events unfold prior to his death that afternoon.
The body of the 16-year-old, from Bradford, was recovered by divers from a lake near Carcassonne. However, Harry, who was a strong swimmer, was last seen alive entering the water at around 1.30pm and it was only at 6pm, at the hotel, that it was realised he was missing.
Yorkshire Live reported earlier this morning that the hearing at Bradford Coroner's Court was informed that Harry's heart and one of his lungs had been lost following a post mortem by the French authorities. It also heard that there were three possibilities to account for this death - Harry must have been hit, lost consciousness or suffered a fatal reaction to the freezing water.
