An inquest into the deaths of a teenager at Camber Sands beach - and a good Samaritan who drowned trying to save him - has heard of the moments leading up to the tragedy.

East Sussex Coroner's Court heard today how father Mohit Dupar died after trying in vain to rescue 19-year-old baker's assistant Gustavo Silva Da Cruz - just a month before five friends drowned there.

Asthma-sufferer Mr Silva Da Cruz, a Brazilian tourist, died on the beach on July 24 while visiting for the day from London with his father and friend.

Mr Dupar, 36, from Hayes in Middlesex, was pulled from the water but had no pulse for around 80 minutes while emergency services tried to revive him.

He was then taken to the intensive care unit at the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford, where he died four days later on July 28.

The cause of death was a brain injury caused by cardiac arrest due to drowning.

The inquest heard Mr Silva Da Cruz entered the water with his friend Guilherme Camago, 14, shortly after arriving on the beach.

Guilherme said in a statement read to the hearing: "We were just mucking around together within our depth.

"Gustavo was going further out so I called out to him to come back.

"I was about the length of a football pitch away and swam back to get help and ran over to the lifeguard tent."

Guilherme said he could see his friend bobbing up and down as though he was jumping to get his head above water. He heard Gustavo shout "I can't breathe".

Mr Silva Da Cruz's father Martin was in the toilet when the incident happened. He was then setting up a tent on the beach and did not know his son was in trouble.

His body was found washed up on the beach by visitors at around 6pm.

Among them was Pauline Ciarnek, who provided a statement which coroner Alan Craze read out.

It said: "I could see that his eyes were open and he didn't react to the water going over him.

"I was so upset and shocked at what I saw and sad we couldn't do more to help him."

Mr Silva Da Cruz's father Martin reported his son missing to police, but while they were searching for him, Mr Dupar and his son Ankush were found washed ashore unconscious.

Police officers told the inquest they had lost sight of Mr Silva Da Cruz and a full search of the beach involving the coastguard and lifeboat was launched along the stretch as far as Lydd Ranges.

There were also four police officers and eight beach patrol officers searching the seafront.

PC Tomlinson answered a question from Mr Silva Da Cruz's father asking why they had not entered the water.

He said they were advised not to because if one of them had got into trouble as well, it would have meant searching for an additional casualty. He said it was at this point the alarm was raised about Mr Dupar and his son being found.

PC Tomlinson, a policeman for 14 years, said: "We have very basic lifesaving skills given when we join.

"We couldn't see Gustavo and didn't know where he was.

"If I entered and started drowning we would have had two people in the water being looked for. Supervision say don't put yourself in danger so we started looking."

The inquest also heard a poignant statement from Mr Dupar's teenage son Ankush, who was flown to hospital in a critical condition.

He was in a coma for three weeks and woke up in St Thomas Hospital in London to be told his father had died.

Ankush, who is expected to make a full recovery, said: "After taking pictures I went to put my mobile into my bag and went back in to swim with my dad.

"He was going in further. I didn't know he was going to save someone."

"On that day I lost everything" - Ankush Dupar

It was at this point Ankush said he got into trouble himself.

"I didn't have control of my body," he said.

"I was in St Thomas Hospital in a coma for three weeks. It was then that I found out my dad had died."

Calling for the beach to be closed, he said: "On that day I lost everything. Even my stepmother has left the country.

"My dad's friend is looking after me."

Giving evidence, Camber Sands kitesurfing instructor Tristan Cawte rejected previous claims riptides could have been responsible for Mr Silva Da Cruz getting into difficulty.

He explained the sand is higher and lower on parts of the beach, so when the tide moves in, bathers can get "caught out" and become out of their depth.

But he said in his vast experience working on the beach and in the water at Camber, there are no rip currents.

Rip tides are caused when waves collect on the shore and feed back through a channel between a gap in sandbars.

Sandbars are areas of sand on the seabed which are caused by tidal movements shifting the sands during storms or rough seas.

It is the gap between the sandbars which causes the water to be pulled or ripped through with more force than it would usually flow back at.

"If there's a three foot difference and you're up to your waist then if you go back you can be up to your chin" - Robert Cass

Robert Cass, the coastal officer for Rother District Council who leads the team of staff at Camber Sands, said the events of "this season have been a shock to all those concerned" with the beach.

He added: "Water incidents at Camber are rare and 95% are land-based like missing children by the dozen with parents thinking they've got the next Ben Needham or Maddie McCann.

"The critical thing to be aware of at Camber is that the tides and water is undulating.

"You can be on an incoming tide and if there's a three foot difference and you're up to your waist then if you go back you can be up to your chin."

He added he felt the best cure to prevent incidents would be for greater education before people visit the beach.

The hearing was adjourned until a date to be confirmed for the coroner to consider any safety recommendations and "what lessons can be learned" from all seven deaths.

This afternoon, a pre-inquest review in Hastings opened into the deaths of the five friends from south east London on the same stretch of beach exactly a month after Mr Silva Da Cruz's death.

Nitharsan Ravi, Kenugen and Kobikanthan Saththiyanathan, Gurushanth Srithavarajah and Inthushan Sriskantharasa were pulled from the water after driving down for a day on the beach.

It was estimated around 20,000 people were on the beach on both days because of the extremely hot weather.

The deaths led to calls for increased lifeguard patrols on the East Sussex beach.

The RNLI and Rother District Council (RDC) had extra lifeguards towards the end of the summer holidays and over the August bank holiday.

RDC has also launched a review into the lifeguard provision on Camber Sands before next summer.