Coroner warns it could take years to unravel mystery of Egypt hotel deaths

A coroner has warned that it could take months or even years to discover why travel agent Susan Cooper and her husband John died on a Thomas Cook holiday in Egypt on August 21.

Speaking at the inquest into their deaths in Preston yesterday, coroner Dr James Adeley said he would write to the Egyptian authorities requesting all paperwork, reports and documentation relating to the case.

But he said that such requests to foreign countries ‘can take months, even years’.

He said he had received only a single document from the Egyptian authorities, stating E. coli as a cause of death, and had no reports detailing toxicology, micro-biology, police or public health investigations.

Mrs Cooper, 63, and Mr Cooper, 69, died in the Red Sea resort of Hurghada after falling ill while staying at the Steigenberger Aqua Magic hotel.

The couple had returned to their room the previous evening to find an ‘acetone-type’ smell, which led them to complain and remove their granddaughter from their room at about 1:15 am because she said she was feeling unwell, the hearing was told.

Dr Adeley said it was a ‘different smell from earlier in the week [and] it was established the next door room had been fumigated’.

The following day, their family became concerned when neither of them had appeared by mid-morning.

Det Insp Leah Rice said Mrs Cooper’s normal routine ‘would usually be up six, six thirty, down to the pool to reserve sun beds for the day, then breakfast’.

"However that morning she was not down for the sun beds," she said.

Dr Adeley said they were found ill in their room and the family called for help.

Two doctors arrived, but shortly after, Mr Cooper ‘collapsed in the room and could not be revived and was verified to have died at noon’, Dr Adeley said.

Mrs Cooper was ‘variably lucid’, he said, but had a heart attack in an ambulance on the way to hospital where her death was confirmed.

Dr Adeley said the Egyptian authorities had concluded that E. coli was a factor in their deaths, but added that he had been made aware of an expert who had suggested that it would not have had such a fast result.

Adjourning the inquest to a date to be fixed, he said that in addition to requesting further information from the Egyptian authorities, he would also ask the Steigenberger hotel group and Thomas Cook to supply ‘all the documentation’.

The funeral for the couple is due to be held today.