The mother who lost two children and her husband when they drowned in a Costa del Sol swimming pool is set to take legal action against the hotel where they died.
Olubunmi Diya, 49, insisted that ‘something must have been wrong with the pool’ that ‘made swimming difficult’ as she challenged the claim that her husband Gabriel, 52, and children Comfort, nine, and Praise-Emmanuel, 16, were unable to swim.
The family had been on holiday at the resort from their home in Charlton, south-east London, when tragedy struck as Praise-Emmanuel and Gabriel jumped into the pool after Comfort got into difficulty.
Mrs Diya and her eldest daughter were offered counselling by the Spanish authorities, but a war of words has since broken out between the widow and bosses at the Club La Costa World resort near Fuengirola, Malaga, who say there ‘was no malfunction of any kind’ at the six-and-a-half-feet deep pool.
Now Mrs Diya has hired one of Spain’s top lawyers to dispute claims they could not swim.
Fuengirola-based lawyer Javier Toro said: ‘I was present for both police interviews and she never said they couldn’t swim and nor did her older daughter.’ In a statement to Sky News yesterday, Mrs Diya said her family had been left ‘utterly heartbroken’ by the tragedy.
‘I believe something was wrong with the pool that must have made swimming difficult for them at that point in time,’ she added.
But the hotel operators said that Mrs Diya’s claims are ‘directly at odds with the findings of the police report’.
CLC World Resorts and Hotels said police findings made it ‘clear that their exhaustive investigations have confirmed the pool was working normally and there was no malfunction of any kind. Our sympathies remain with the family at what we understand must be a stressful and desperately upsetting time for them.’
