Girl dies

Youngster perishes while training in Scotland
A 17-year-old girl has been killed while learning to dive in Scotland, in an incident which has highlighted the risks of single instructors being responsible for more than one trainee in open water.
Julia Brandrith, from Tynemouth in North Tyneside, was training with a schoolfriend in the company of one instructor in the Sound of Kerrara, near Oban on Scotland's west coast.
It is reported that, in good weather conditions, the three were at about 27m when complications struck. Contact with Julia was lost as the instructor inflated the other trainee's BC and had to return to the surface with her.
Following a search by RAF helicopter and divers from a nearby centre, Julia was found unconscious and brought to the surface, where attempts at resuscitation failed.
She was declared dead soon afterwards.
The other two divers were later treated for decompression illness caused by their rapid ascent.
According to the Coastguard, the instructor reported that the three had been diving along a cliff face at 27m when a downcurrent hit them; that he started to fin upwards with his two trainees but, despite his efforts, quickly found that they had been pushed down to 46m; and that, while he was trying to help Julia's friend inflate her BC, contact with Julia was lost.
However, a local dive centre operator has refuted the claim, saying that downcurrents do not occur in the area.
Julia, who was days short of her 18th birthday, had taken up diving while on a family holiday in Australia. Her father, a keen diver, introduced her to the wonders of the Great Barrier Reef. Upon returning home she joined a club and, according to a family member, "really loved it".