Parents demand answers after daughter, 20, found at bottom of pool

The parents of a 20-year-old British woman have called for a full investigation into how she died. Student Holly Woodcock, 20, from Erith, London, was found at the bottom of a swimming pool after a party with neighbours at her school friend’s French holiday villa in August 2024. The French authorities ruled at an inquest that Holly drowned at the property in St Hilaire-la-Foret. But it did not make a decision as regards the exact cause of death, with trauma not being ruled out. Her parents want to be sure there was no foul play, and want to believe that this is not the case.

Local police stopped looking into the young woman’s death after just over a week, even though there were a number of unanswered questions and incompatible witness statements about what happened. Officers did not determine how much Holly had drunk, and DNA samples that could have ruled out a medical incident were not taken, and her swimming costume, were destroyed.

Moreover, mobile phones were not looked at, and CCTV footage was never analysed.

Joanna Woodcock, 57, a school administrator, told The Daily Mail: “I want to say to Keir Starmer, ‘If this were your daughter, you would not have been dealt with this way, where the case would have been dropped after just a few days.’

“The French police put the drowning down to Holly having drunk alcohol, but her shorts were found folded up by the side of the pool; that is not something you do if you are drunk enough to drown.”

Construction project manager Mr Woodcock, 55, said: “I feel like standing outside the French Embassy with a placard saying, ‘If you want to murder anyone, take them to France, give them a couple of beers, and you’ll get away with it. They won’t care.'”

Holly’s family are also concerned that witnesses were not interviewed until the following day, with some individuals having never been spoken with.

It is also claimed that the timeline of events is incomplete.

The family’s appeals to reopen the case were rejected, and the Foreign Office has said it is unable to help because it cannot intervene in another country’s criminal and judicial process.

French investigators said: “The coroner’s report indicates that the exact cause of death has not been determined, and that a traumatic cause of death has not been ruled out. Given the context of the report and his findings, the most likely cause of death is drowning.”