Three witnesses told an inquest today that they saw a man push two children from a Greek holiday hotel balcony then jump after them.

Liam Hogan, 6, from Bristol, died of severe head injuries after he and his father, John, and sister, Mia, then 2, fell 50ft from the fourth floor of the Petra Mare Hotel in Crete.

A Home Office pathologist who examined Liam's embalmed body after it was flown back from Crete said that the child had suffered severe skull fractures.

John Hogan and Mia survived with broken limbs after the plunge on August 15, 2006.

Mr Hogan was acquitted of Liam's murder by a Greek court in January, in a verdict that his estranged wife, Natasha Hogan, called a miscarriage of justice.

Earlier accounts of the tragedy had suggested that Mr Hogan jumped with his children in his arms, but at the inquiry into Liam's eath, which opened in Bristol today, heard evidence that appeared to contradict this.

Kerry Jackman, who was waiting outside the hotel with some friends for a bus to take them to the airport, described how she had looked up at the noise of a row issuing from an upper bedroom.

"It was almost like a maniac shouting, in a rage almost. There was a muffled voice from the background," Ms Jackman told the inquest.

"I said ’something awful is going on up there’. As I looked up I thought it was two little girls stood on the balcony. We looked and said, ’There’s little children on the balcony’. I saw this figure behind them.

"Instantaneously, I knew something was wrong. I saw two little children coming off the balcony feet-first as if they had been pushed off.

"I looked at Sarah [Davidson], and as I looked back up I saw an adult man falling, slightly above the two children. I shouted, ’Oh my God, he’s killed his kids’.

"Then the little girl was coming down first. The little boy had his arms out as if they were trying to grab each other almost.

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