A TEACHER wept as he described his attempts to stop a 14-year-old girl being washed away to her death in a fast flowing river.

Andy Miller, 48, told an inquest in Harrogate how he was leading a river walk in Stainforth Beck, near Settle, North Yorkshire, when he heard shouts and saw some people had been washed away.

Mr Miller was giving evidence on the sixth day of the inquest into the deaths of Rochelle Cauvet, 14, and Hannah Black, 13, who died on the trip on October 10, 2000, organised by Royds School, Oulton, near Leeds.

The search for the girls' bodies spread into Lancashire along 10km of the River Ribble in Sawley, Clitheroe and Gisburn, as Lancashire Police and volunteers from the Rossendale Search and Rescue Team joined the hunt.

Mr Miller said he immediately ran down the riverbank when he realised people had been swept downstream.

He eventually found a place where he could grab a girl he later learned was Rochelle, but both he and teenager were swept away.

He said: "I managed to grab hold of a broken branch that hung over the stream. I held on to the branch and held on to Rochelle." In tears, he added: "But unfortunately I could not keep hold of Rochelle."

The inquest continues.