John Pollard, the South Manchester Coroner, said yesterday that senior members of the Oxford University Lightweight Rowing Club had failed to tell investigators the full story about a training trip to Spain in December 2000 on which Leo Blockley, 21, a maths postgraduate, drowned.

He also criticised the head coach at the rowing club who, the inquest in Stockport was told, had been drunk on the morning of the tragedy.

Mr Pollard initially recorded a verdict of accidental death, but he took the unusual step of seeking judicial approval to hold a fresh inquest into Mr Blockley’s death after his parents began to hear rumours that Leila Hudson, 34, the head coach, was either drunk or hungover, and that this information had been suppressed.

The coroner severely criticised senior officers of the rowing club for what amounted to a “conspiracy or, more accurately, agreement”.

He said that they remained silent in the years after the accident near Barcelona to protect the club, whose reputation had been tarnished the previous year when the drunken antics of rowers had resulted in one arrest. They feared that the club’s participation in intervarsity racing would be ended.

Mr Pollard said: “I find this decision extremely difficult to understand. A number of senior people took the view it should not be made public. I find it a matter of regret that they felt the reputation of the rowing club was of greater importance than the death of a young man.”

The coroner particularly criticised Miss Hudson, a London-based recruitment specialist, for her “disjointed and unsatisfactory” evidence and memory lapses, including her inability to recall how much she had had to drink the night before.

In particular, he said, she had insisted in a witness statement to Richard Hartley, the head of the university police force, that she was head coach. However, she had been forced to resign some days before. Mr Pollard said: “This deception meant that Mr Hartley’s investigation remained limited.” Mr Hartley told the inquest that if he had known of Miss Hudson’s condition, he would have pursued that line of the investigation.

The coroner recorded a narrative verdict, which is given when he is unsure as to what caused the death.

The conclusion to the five-day hearing was hailed as a vindication by Janette Blockley, 54, the dead student’s mother, and her husband, Stephen, 53, who have campaigned for greater safety on the water. They want rowing clubs to adopt boats with built-in buoyancy tanks.

After the hearing Mr Blockley, a teacher from Ashton-under-Lyne, Tameside, said that the verdict was justice for Leo, whose name had been “slurred” by the rowing world since his death. “Today we feel vindicated. There has been no blame of Leo’s conduct and much criticism of Oxford University rowing,” he said. Club members who stayed silent had not been traumatised by the events of the day, Mr Blockley said. “Those who lived through the terror of that day looked to those seniors in Oxford for moral guidance. That guidance was lacking. The advice was to deny us the truth of what happened, so as to protect the interests of the club.”

The inquest was told that Jonathan Price, an academic psychiatrist at The Queen’s College, Oxford, had decided to “spill the beans”.

Dr Price, one of five coaches, told how the party had arrived in Amposta in Spain for the annual training session. Rowers were given a warning that there should be no repeat of the previous year’s bad behaviour before coaches, including Miss Hudson, headed out for a night on the town.

He said he was woken at 3am by raised voices and banging. He could hear Miss Hudson. When he caught up with her on the morning of the tragedy, he said she was still suffering from the effects of drink.

The two rowing Eights set out into the Ebro delta. They were halfway through the short 80-minute “outing” when the propeller of Dr Price’s launch became entangled with rope.

As their launch became stuck, the launch carrying Miss Hudson motored across to lend support. Within a short time fierce winds created choppy water. When the boat carrying Mr Blockley returned to investigate, they were signalled to carry on back to the clubhouse, which entailed a hazardous crossing of the river.

When the boat was swapped, some stayed with it but others, including Leo, struck out for a disused landing stage 200m away.

Peter Bannister, a fellow rower, told the inquest that he heard Leo call out before slipping under the surface. His body was found five weeks later, eight miles downstream.

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