PHOTOGRAPHS from a camera found with the bodies of two cavers near Ingleton have helped a coroner to piece together their final hours.

They show how George Raymond Lea, 58, of Vancouver Street, Darlington, and Julian Carroll, 29, of Hotspur Street, Tynemouth, were just minutes from safety when they died in a cavern on the North Yorkshire/Lancashire border in February.

Family members raised the alarm after the pair did not return by nightfall but could not tell rescuers exactly where the men had planned to go.

Rescuers discovered the pair suspended from ropes in freezing cold fast-flowing water after an overnight search by police. A camera containing 31 undeveloped photographs was recovered with the bodies.

An inquest at Lancaster Magistrates Court heard how the photographs showed the pair had ventured further into the cave system than rescuers had expected before getting into difficulty at a steep entrance to a cavern, only minutes from the surface. Stephen John Finch, duty controller at Cave Rescue Organisation (CRO) on the day the cavers' bodies were found, said: Looking at these (photographs) they have gone right down into the cave system. It might not have been apparent to them while they were down there how water conditions were deteriorating on the surface.

Fellow CRO volunteer Tom Redfern said the men had no choice but to climb up through the water to reach the surface or wait until conditions improved. It had been a "nightmare situation".

"In freezing cold water like that I do not think it would take long to lose complete control of what you were doing and succumb to the conditions. It would be a matter of minutes," said Mr Redfern.

Mr Lea, an experienced caver, was caving with Mr Carroll for the first time on February 10 last year after meeting via the Internet. They were wearing correct equipment.

Coroner for North Lancashire, George Howson, said a post-mortem examination had shown both men had drowned, probably as a result of physical exhaustion leading to hypothermia then drowning.

He recorded a verdict of misadventure.

Perils of the underworld - Page 12