'I told him he was being really silly... then I saw him slip and fall to his death'

The friend of a teenager who died after falling 200ft on a Scouts trip has recounted the moment the fatal slip happened, an inquest has heard.

Ben Leonard, 16, from Stockport, was on an organised expedition on August 26, 2018, when he suffered a serious head injury in the fall from cliffs on the Great Orme in Llandudno, North Wales.

An inquest at Manchester Civil Justice Centre has previously heard how Ben and two friends, Christopher Gilbert and Alex Jamieson, became separated from the rest of their group and were unaccompanied by any of the three Scout leaders on the trip when he fell from the cliff edge.

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Giving evidence today, Mr Gilbert - who was 16 at the time - said that shortly after setting off on the walk up the Great Orme, he and the other two boys decided to take a different route to the other members of the Reddish Explorer Scouts.

He, Ben and Mr Jamieson headed along a "well-trodden" footpath, a short distance from the main path where the other Scouts were. They had not received a map or instructions about which route to take and had not been warned about the cliffs, Mr Gilbert said.

After splitting from the group, Mr Gilbert told the inquest that he made a phone call to another of the Scouts. During the call, he said one of the Scout leaders, Mary Carr, told the boys to "just wander around a bit".

After entering an area he described as a "peninsula", Mr Gilbert said he and Mr Jamieson stood chatting while Ben wanted to "look at the coastline".. After a while, he said all three boys decided to find a café.

"We started walking back and Ben told us he saw an easier way down," Mr Gilbert said. "He thought he could get