Barker believes that living in the bush provides “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” Odds of winning: 3/1. The mother of a 13-year-old girl who drowned on a school trip to France warned staff days before the holiday that her daughter could not swim, an inquest jury was told yesterday. Gemma, from Beeston, Leeds, became separated from a group of children who were paddling in the sea at Le Touquet. Her body was found a few hours later after she failed to return to the hotel. Mrs Carter told the jury, sitting at Leeds coroners’ court, that her daughter was unable to swim. She said that when she received the itinerary for the trip she noticed that it referred to a visit to a swimming pool.”I sent a letter to the school saying she couldn’t swim and would they just keep an eye on her,” she told the inquest.

Asked whether this referred to the visit to the swimming pool she replied: “I had no idea she was going to natural waters.”She believed her daughter may have been persuaded to paddle in the shallow waters by her friends, but she told the inquest Gemma would never have gone above waist level.Under cross-examination, Simon Jackson QC, representing the local authority, suggested to Mrs Carter that her daughter had taken swimming lessons and had obtained a Dolphin II swimming badge. Mrs Carter replied: “She never brought any certificates home.”A pupil told the inquest a group of children asked the teachers if they could go swimming on the second evening of the trip. A group of children accompanied by a teacher, Mark Duckworth, went to the beach and some began wading into the water, the jury was told.Kay-Lee Ann Asquith, 16, said she became frightened as the current began to pull her out to sea. “I thought I’m not going to get out of here, I’m going to be trapped.” She told the inquest she had seen Gemma in the water up to her waist. The teenager recalled Mr Duckworth telling the children to get out of the water.Earlier the teacher had warned the youngsters not to paddle out too far, the inquest, which is expected to last two weeks, was told.. Had James Miller lived, this laughing, mischievous, decent man would have come to be recognised as one of the greatest documentary-makers of his generation As it is he leaves a journalistic legacy of immense worth.

James Miller, film-maker: born 18 December 1968; married 1997 Sophy Warren-Knott (one son, one daughter); died Rafah, Occupied Territories 2 May 2003.
Had James Miller lived, this laughing, mischievous, decent man would have come to be recognised as one of the greatest documentary-makers of his generation. As it is he leaves a journalistic legacy of immense worth.He began his television career with the Frontline agency in 1995. I first met him in Algeria where, with typical bravery, he was reporting on that country’s vicious civil war. He reported from most of the major trouble spots during the last decade but he was never gung-ho or a war-junkie. He was a thoughtful and sensitive journalist who went to these places in search of essential truths.Miller had worked for all the leading news broadcasters in Britain, as well as CNN. At the time of his death – he was shot dead in the Gaza Strip – he was making a film for the US cable network HBO.

He was one of the team which made Prime Suspect, a film on war crimes in Kosovo that won the Royal Television Society prize for Best International Current Affairs Programme. Whether it was reporting on the death squads of Slobodan Milosevic or the Russian bombing of a refugee convoy in Chechnya, Miller placed the rights of the vulnerable at the top his priorities.It was in the last two years that his talents brought him international acclaim. Together with the reporter Saira Shah, he produced a groundbreaking film on life under the Taliban, Beneath the Veil. Their work in Afghanistan was to win them two Emmys, several Royal Television Society awards, a Bafta and a Peabody.Miller was born in 1968 in Pembrokeshire, the younger son of Geoffrey Miller, an army officer, and his wife, Eileen, a headmistress. He grew up in the West Country, but from ages six to eight lived in the Outer Hebrides, where his parents were posted.