Couple die in falls from hotel five days apart

Couple die in falls from hotel five days apart

Four young brothers have been orphaned after their parents died just hours apart in separate balcony falls.

Roger and Mathilde Lamb were enjoying a family holiday in Morocco when tragedy struck.

Mathilde, 44 known as Tilly plunged 60ft from a third-floor balcony at their rented holiday home in the Atlantic resort of Essaouira.

She was rushed to intensive care at a local hospital but died three days later.

The next day grieving Roger, 47, fell from a second-floor balcony at the five-star Sofitel hotel in Essaouira, where he had been staying with his sons since Tilly's fall.

He was treated at the same hospital as his wife before being transferred to Marrakech 250 miles away, but died that night.

The couple's sons Angus, 16, Montague, 15, Henry, 11, and Felix, nine, flew home and were last night being cared for by relatives as Moroccan police investigated the deaths.

Reports surrounding Roger's fall were still confused, but friends fear he may have committed suicide out of despair over his wife's death.

Roger, a highly skilled geo-technical engineer, had been living in New Zealand, where he was working to rebuild quake-hit Christchurch. His family had stayed behind at their 850,000 country home in Pensham, Worcs where Tilly ran a B&B in converted outbuildings but were preparing to move to New Zealand to be with him.

Villagers described Roger and Tilly as "pillars of the community" and local mayor John Grantham said: "Everybody in Pensham is in shock." - www.thesun.co.uk