Ninety minutes of horror after girl, 12, crushed to death playing on rope swing

It should have been an afternoon of childhood joy, but instead it ended in utter tragedy. Brooke Wiggins , 12, was happily playing on a rope swing with friends in Banstead, Surrey, when she was suddenly hit by a fallen tree branch and became trapped. Heartbreakingly, by the time emergency services managed to free her, it was too late. The little girl died at the scene from severe crush injuries, just days before she was due to celebrate her 13th birthday. An inquest heard that the tree was due for a safety inspection just weeks before the accident - a check that never took place. Here, we look at how the nightmare unfolded as Brooke's devastated parents speak out... The inquest heard Brooke had been playing with two friends at the time of the tragedy, referred to as Friend A and Friend B. The second friend told police that the swing, a branch tied with rope, sat low to the ground and "didn't feel safe at all". Speaking about that devastating day, Friend A told police that the swing was used by Friend B for around five minutes before Brooke used it, and it was then that "the branch started shaking and it fell on her ribs". The helpless teen had only been on the swing for two minutes before she fell, but she ended up being pinned under the branch for an agonising amount of time. After the accident, the panicked friends scrambled to get help as brothers Edward and Patrick Delane tried to free Brooke from the huge fallen piece of wood, but it couldn't be moved without specialist assistance. Ambulances rushed to the scene in Grove Place, but it took between 90 minutes and two hours for the wood to be lifted using specialist equipment. Tragically, by the time she was freed, it was too late. Brooke died at the scene, with her cause of death recorded as blunt force trauma to the chest with traumatic asphyxia, which the coroner ruled today as an accident. The beech tree that Brooke had been swinging from, maintained by Surrey County Council, was last inspected in May 2022, the inquest heard. This resulted in a recommendation to remove ivy covering the tree, to "aid future inspection". It was due for re-inspection in May 2024, which did not take place. Acting on behalf of Brooke's father Lee Wiggins, barrister Christian Weaver told the inquest that if the inspection had been carried out, the rope swing would have been removed, which the council disputed. Mr Wiggins said: "Only 12 years old, and now she's gone forever. When I think of her, I ask myself, 'why my darling Brooke?' If only people had done their job properly… the one thing they are paid to do, and did it properly, Brooke would still be here." Gordon Carson, of the Health and Safety Executive, told the inquest that the council's policy is to remove rope swings from trees within seven days. He said the council had not provided any evidence of a system that flags overdue inspections, or a record of whether or why it decided to defer the May 2024 inspection. But Surrey County Council officials said expert evidence shows an inspection may not have achieved a "material different outcome". After Brooke's death, the tree was revealed to have had a "crack" which was not visible from ground level, the hearing heard. Work to remove the ivy, which concealed a crack on the tree, was never carried out by council workers despite recommendations. Katherine McDonald, the council's group manager for countryside, told the inquest the work was given a priority rating of five, meaning it "should" take place within 12 months of the inspection. When asked to explain what is meant by "should", Miss McDonald said she had received advice from tree surgeon James Wade but this did not amount to a "concrete plan". The manager told the inquest the council must "juggle" competing priorities, and deliver residents the best value for money by tackling "the highest priority first". She said the number of trees the council is responsible for is "in the millions, not the thousands", and it would not be possible to complete all work recommended by the team responsible for maintaining trees in the county. Miss McDonald also told the hearing that the tree is metres behind the nearby bridleway, and the council was not aware of the area being accessed by the public. When asked by Christian Weaver, Brooke's father's lawyer, if signs have since been put up at the site of the accident, Miss McDonald responded: "No." Miss McDonald said if she had been aware of swings hanging from the tree Brooke had been swinging from, such signage would "certainly" have been considered. She said: "The branch had already fallen, and the rope swings were on that branch and were not on any other tree in the area. We would envisage putting them on a specific tree, where a specific tree is an issue, rather than a general location." When asked how the council educates the public about the dangers of rope swings, Miss McDonald said countryside education is "not an easy subject". She added: "Where there is an activity taking place that is undesirable, if you highlight it, it can draw attention to it." Information about the dangers of rope swings is issued by the council as advice to schools, she said. After Brooke's death, the council decided to "monolith" the tree – to reduce it to a trunk, despite it being considered healthy, "because of what's happened", the inquest heard. In a statement from Brooke's mum Claire Etherington, the 12-year-old was described as a 'beautiful, fun, caring and loving girl' who had 'the most incredible way of lighting up every room she went into'. "She was always surrounded by the people who loved her, and it's easy to see why – she gave so much love back," her devastated mother said. "Brooke loved dancing, art, singing and taking photographs. "She took pride in expressing herself, and "never went anywhere without her eyelashes on," she said. "She was a smart girl with so much potential. We will always wonder what she would have gone on to achieve in her life." She added that she hopes knowing what happened to Brooke will bring "a small sense of closure" and "some understanding". Mr Wiggins, Brooke's father, told the inquest his daughter was an "amazing young woman", who was "bright" and "very funny". He said: "I am devastated that my baby girl has been taken from me. She packed so much into her short life. Assistant coroner Ivor Collett said Surrey County Council, which was responsible for maintaining the tree, had faced criticism over how it inspected the safety of trees, but concluded it could not have reasonably been expected to do more to stop Brooke's death from occuring. "I see what happened on the awful day of Brooke's death as an accident which was not readily foreseeable by either of the local authorities involved. I find that they, and Surrey County Council in particular, had reasonable systems in place. "Bearing in mind their duties and the risks and the public resources they have to manage, they could not reasonably be expected to have done more in a way which would have prevented this terrible accident," Mr Collett said today. The coroner added: "A criticism made in this case of Surrey County Council has been that its inspection regime was deficient. However, I do not make that finding. "I accept the need to prioritise tree inspection works. This is not the same statutory territory as highway inspection regimes, it is far more nuanced and must be far more reactive and flexible, especially given the resources available and the huge number of trees involved in the Surrey CC estate." When it came to the question of signage around such trees, Mr Collett said: "it is doubtful that vigorous children and teenagers would take much notice of warning signs". Mr Collett paid tribute to Brooke, and the massive grief her family now struggles with. "They have provided a voice for her when she has been unable to speak for herself. Brooke was plainly a light that shone in their lives, and while that light shone far less than half as long as was its due, it clearly shone more than twice as brightly." Speaking at the start of the hearing, assistant coroner Ivor Collett said: "This is a particularly sad inquest. Of course, there are no happy inquests, but this is dreadful because it concerns the death of a young child and there's no escaping that. To the family, I am bound to sound, at times, rather cold and distant… (but) I do not take away for a moment the unending pain felt by the family by the loss of their beloved daughter." At a pre-inquest review last year, Mr Collett said the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) had carried out an investigation, alongside tree experts from Surrey County Council. The coroner noted that that review hearing: "There is no suggestion that Brooke and her friends were doing anything wrong. It was public land. There was a bridleway they walked along to get to it. It's not as if they clambered over a fence to gain access to land they were prohibited from." Mr Collett said police bodyworn footage would be too distressing to play in court. "It's so upsetting to think of a 12-year-old child in this situation," he added. "It's the most terrible thing for any family to endure. We owe it to Brooke to investigate properly and allow a conclusion to be fully informed."