Married man dies with mistress in hotel pool

Married man dies with mistress in hotel pool: A couple who drowned at a luxury hotel were having an affair, it was claimed yesterday.


Komba Kpakiwa, 31, and Josephine Foday, 22, were found floating face
down in the pool at the four-star Down Hall Country House Hotel in
Hatfield Heath, Essex, on Saturday.




Mr Kpakiwa, who was married with two young children, had taken Miss
Foday, a nursing student who was not his wife, away for a surprise
weekend break to celebrate her birthday on Friday.

Josephine Newahun Foday, right and Komba Kpakiwa,left, were found
drowned at the Down Hall Country House Hotel in Hatfield, Essex

They had gone out for the day, before returning to the hotel room
they were sharing and then going down to the pool, the inquest at
Chelmsford Coroner’s Court heard yesterday.




A hotel guest saw the pair floating in the ten-metre indoor pool but
presumed they were playing a game and went into the sauna, it was
claimed last night.




When the guest returned to the pool he saw they were face down in the
water and dialled 999. The pair were pronounced dead at the scene.


Police are not treating the deaths as suspicious and preliminary post-mortem examinations found they had drowned.

A picture posted on Twitter by a hotel guest showed the swimming pool area cordoned off by police

Mr Kpakiwa had been taking his girlfriend Josephine Foday on a surprise weekend away for her 22nd birthday

Last night, Miss Foday’s grandmother, Theresa Farma, 61, said Mr
Kpakiwa had surprised her granddaughter with the getaway to celebrate
her birthday.

She said he had met her at the corner shop at the top of her road
where he worked as a supervisor and they started seeing each other in
February.

Josephine Newahun Foday and her grandmother Theresa Farma who described her as a ‘loving granddaughter’

Speaking from her home in Plumstead, south-east London, Mrs Farma
said: ‘She called me on Friday to say that she had arrived at the hotel.
They were looking forward to spending time at the hotel.


‘They were supposed to come back on Sunday but instead the police
came. Everyone is upset, distraught. I can’t believe she has gone.’


Miss Foday was a second year nursing student at Canterbury Christ Church University.


She fled to England with her grandmother from their native Sierra
Leone in 2001 when both her parents disappeared in the country’s civil
war.


Mrs Farma said: ‘We don’t know where her parents are, we think they are dead. I grabbed the child and left.


‘I am so sad, now my granddaughter has been taken away too.’


Abdul Conteh, a family friend, said a man saw the pair floating in the water, but thought they were just fooling around.


He said: ‘According to an eyewitness, he saw the couple in the pool,
he went to the sauna and eight minutes later he came out and saw Komba’s
face in the pool and Josephine was lying on his back.


‘He thought they were mucking around, a couples thing, he didn’t take
any notice of them. But then he came back again and he saw the two of
them going down and saw the man’s face was underneath the water, so he
raised the alarm.’

A
policeman stands guard at the Down Hall Country House Hotel in Essex,
where the couple were discovered dead in the swimming pool on Saturday
night

Mr Kpakiwa, who was also from Sierra Leone, lived with his wife, Gurpreet, in Erith, Kent.


The couple, who had been married for four years had two children, a son, seven, and a daughter, six.


His cousin, Teresa Kpakiwa, 52, last night said she knew nothing of
Miss Foday, adding: ‘This is so awful, they’ve got young children.’

Miss Foday had been living with a 23-year-old man in Chatham, Kent.
It is not known what their relationship was. It is thought Mr Kpakiwa
was studying for a law degree alongside his work in the corner shop.


Miss Foday had posted cryptic messages on Twitter before her death,
including: ‘You have to accept not everyone is going to love you back,
that’s why it’s most important to love yourself.’ She also wrote: ‘If
you really knew me, you’d know that I will make myself miserable to make
someone else happy.’


Debra Teasdale of Christ Church University said: ‘We were very
saddened to hear about Josephine’s tragic death at the weekend and our
thoughts and sympathies are with her family and friends.’