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Exclusive: Grieving widow tells of husband's death fall

Anne and Tony Staplehurst on their wedding day
Anne and Tony Staplehurst on their wedding day

A widow has told how she screamed in horror for help as her husband plunged to his death while on a dream holiday in South Africa.

Anne Staplehurst, from Windmill Close, Willesborough, Ashford, described her frantic efforts to save her husband Tony after he slipped on a cliff path and she saw him clinging to the edge of a huge drop down to the seashore.

She said: “The path was rocky and narrow and it was very winding and some people turned back.

“After a while Tony said we should too, so we were walking back to the coach park.

“I was slightly in front and turned around to check he was okay and he had gone. I went back and could just see his face looking up and hands hanging on to the vegetation.”

Since that moment Anne says her life has been a blur.

Tony’s eldest son John arrived in South Africa to comfort her and help investigations into the accident.

He said: “Nobody knows exactly what happened. After checking his camera I do know that reports that he was taking photographs are not true."

For more on this story and the full interview with Mrs Staplehurst, see this week's Kentish Express

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