HEALTH and safety officials may still prosecute Lightwater Valley theme park where a 20-year-student died, despite a coroner not letting a jury consider a verdict of unlawful killing.

The family of Durham University student Gemma Savage, who died following a collision on a rollercoaster, hit out after an inquest jury returned a verdict of misadventure.

Miss Savage was seriously injured when two cars collided on the Treetop Twister ride at the park near Ripon, on June 20, 2001. She died in hospital a day later.

After the inquest at Skipton, Miss Savage's mother, Linda, said the family had heard nothing at the inquest to convince them that safety levels had improved at Lightwater Valley since 2001.

She described her daughter as ''beautiful, bright and loving'' who had everything to live for and added that her daughter died in an ''awful, needless way."

But Paul Robinson, who led the investigation for the Health and Safety Executive, said legal action might be brought.

He said: ''In the light of the verdict, the HSE will now review and exame the evidence placed before the inquest."

The inquest heard that Miss Savage, from Wath upon Dearne, South Yorkshire, was enjoying a day out with friends from Durham University when the accident happened.

The jury was told that the collision happened as engineer Eric Butters was attempting to lower a number of cars from the ride which had been stopped as a safety precaution by the rollercoaster's computer.

The inquest heard that he had not hit an emergency stop button which would have shut off the computer.

Because of this, the computer and Mr Butters were both attempting to operate the control system at the same time, which led to the collision.

But the jury heard that Mr Butters should not have been able to operate the manual controls without hitting the emergency button and was only able to do so owing to a wiring fault.

Miss Savage's car was stationary in a dip on the ride when it was hit by another car rolling down a slope.

After the verdict, John Sleightholme, deputy North Yorkshire coroner, told the family he was aware of their views, but hoped the hearing had meant all the information about Miss Savage's death had been aired.