A UKRANIAN teenager died after slipping off the Dawlish sea wall while walking in the dark, an inquest heard.

Albina Yevko, 14, was found on a sandy beach between Dawlish and Dawlish Warren one night in March 2023.

DI Becky Davies, head of the local Public Protection team, said Albina’s glasses, headphones and mobile phone were found on the dry side of the beach.

Albina was found face down on the beach where her hair was dry but her clothes were dishevelled as the tide began coming back in.

DI Davies said Alina had been messaging a friend for around 90 minutes as she went out for a walk on her own that night until around 7.24pm when she stopped reading and responding to messages and calls.

The officer said they had ruled out foul play and suicide and said: ‘Everything points to a tragic accident.’

She said Albina, who escaped the Russian invasion in April 2022 and settled in Dawlish with her mother Inna, did not deliberately jump from the wall to end her life.

DI Davies said there was no barrier to stop anyone coming off the sea wall and no marking to show people the edge of it, as well as no lighting on a dry but breezy dark night. 

She added: ‘There was no evidence her mobile phone was being used at the time of the fall. She could have been on her mobile phone but we cannot say whether she was or not. 

‘There was no evidence of mental health issues at the time of the incident.’

She said CCTV from the seaside town showed her ‘looking relatively happy weaving along the pavement’ and light heartedly texting a friend that she had nearly bumped into a member of the public.  

Pathologist Dr Deborah Cook said Albina suffered multiple injuries after a fall from height.

She said Albina, an only child, may have suffered an open handed push or had fallen from a ‘mis step in the dark’. 

Albina was treated on the beach in a difficult location but later airlifted to an Exeter hospital where she died the next morning.

Her mother Inna said her daughter was ‘not the most sociable person and preferred to be on her own’.

She said: ‘She never learned to swim. She had a small group of friends from school.’ 

Inna said her daughter had been out for two hour long walks before but reported her missing that night when she failed to answer her phone. 

She last spoke to her as she walked back along the seafront, saying: ‘I told her to be careful.’

A search by a police helicopter located her fully clothed but motionless body on the beach that night as police, ambulance, coastguards and the RNLI joined in the incident.

Area coroner Alison Longhorn recorded an accidental death conclusion. 

She told Exeter Coroner’s Court:”  ‘She fell from height while walking along the sea wall on to the beach below sustaining injuries.’

She told Albina’s mother that it was ‘truly tragic’ that Albina had come to the UK as a refugee from war and had been lost in this way. 

The coroner said Network Rail should take action to reduce the risk of further deaths - despite a risk assessment in 2015 - and she will issue a Prevention of Future Deaths report so that Network Rail can respond urgently. 

She said Albina’s ‘extensive severe injuries’ in the fall from the high sea wall led to cardiac arrest adding that ‘death was inevitable’. 

Andrew Warren, safety boss from Network Rail, confirmed there were no railings on the sea wall which was first built in the late 1840s - and the rail line was famously washed away in storms in 2014.

He said there was a public right of way along the wall but added: ‘We don't invite people into the sea wall but there is a right of access since it was created.’ 

He said in the 1970s there were a series of serious incidents where people fell or were washed off the wall but the inquest then heard from 1974 to 2008 there had been other fatalities as well as injuries there.

Mr Warren said it would be ‘an extremely challenging task’ to fit handrails along the old section of the sea wal. 

He said a white line painted along the edge of the wall in the 1990s only lasted two years before it was eroded.