Hugo Palmer: Sussex backpacker 'likely to have drowned' in Australia

A backpacker who disappeared while travelling round Australia is likely to have fallen victim to a rip current and drowned, an inquest heard.

Hugo Palmer, 20, and his friend Erwan Ferrieux, 21, went missing in February 2019 at a beach where three others had drowned in recent years.

The former pupils from Sackville School, East Grinstead, had been trekking around Australia.

Coroner Alan Craze concluded that Hugo's death was misadventure.

The inquest at Eastbourne Town Hall heard the pair had arrived in the resort in the town of Port Macquarie, a popular beach resort north of Sydney.

They were just half way through a "trip of a lifetime" to Australia.

The alarm was raised when their belongings were found still untouched on the beach and their hire car was discovered nearby.

It prompted a huge land and sea search operation but to no avail.

Sea conditions were described as "testing" and difficult for inexperienced surf swimmers.

Det Con Richard Broomby said Shelly Beach was "considered dangerous for an inexperienced surf swimmer".

Hugo's femur bone was discovered in the sea by a spear fishermen later that month with DNA tests revealing that it belonged to him.

In a statement read to the inquest his mother Tania MacNabb said: "He was not a strong swimmer at all".

The coroner said Hugo's exact cause of death may never be known but the vast probability was that he drowned.

His family helped to raise more than £26,000 to create an enhanced skate park in Forest Row named in his honour.

Paying tribute his mother said: "His incredible warm, good nature and amazing zest for life was so infectious, and he made a huge impression on everyone that he met."

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