'Danger' sledging slope should be closed, says coroner.

A CORONER said yesterday she would be recommending a popular sledging slope is either closed to the public or a dangerous fence across it is permanently removed, after hearing how a 16-year-old girl died in a horrific accident.

An inquest was told that Francesca Anobile died after the improvised sledge she was travelling on crashed through a wire fence, after sliding 200 metres down a steep slope at speeds of up to 60mph.

Francesca was with four friends when the accident happened in the Rother Valley Country Park, in South Yorkshire, in February, after the girls decided to use an upturned Land Rover roof to go down the slope, which is a popular sledging location.

Rotherham Coroner's Court heard the girls went to the park to go snowboarding, after the heaviest snowfall in the area for 16 years.

The coroner was told that a group of boys had been using the Land Rover roof as a sledge before the girls arrived and had been reaching alarming speeds from just halfway down the hillside.

Francesca and her friends found the roof and dragged it to the top of the hill before five of them got on.

Witnesses described how the improvised sledge set off at such a speed everyone on the hillside stopped to watch.

After 200 metres it crashed through the wire fence, put up in 2006 to keep sheep out of an area used for archery.

As it hit the fence, Francesca was thrown off and suffered serious brain injuries, from which she later died.

Rotherham coroner Nicola Mundy recorded a verdict of accidental death.