A TEENAGER who died in a cliff fall had been enjoying her first holiday without her parents, her grieving father said last night.

It is thought Terri Ellwood may have unwittingly wandered onto a side path in the dark which led straight over the edge of Gristhorpe Cliffs, near Filey, North Yorkshire.

The 16-year-old lived in Forth Close, Peterlee, County Durham, with her father Terry, who last night was struggling to come to terms with the tragedy.

"It was the first time she had been away on her own and she was really looking forward to it," he said.

"I'm just waiting for her to come home. I just don't know what to do. It shouldn't have happened.

"Everybody loved the bairn and she will be really missed."

She was staying at the nearby Blue Dolphin holiday centre with her 16-year-old boyfriend and his parents when the pair decided to go for a walk in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

They headed along the cliff-top path where they met two holiday makers from Sunderland, who accompanied them.

Terri and one of the women fell between 80 and 100ft to a spot known locally as Pudding Hole at the foot of the cliffs.

The 30-year-old woman suffered head and leg injuries and was airlifted to hospital where she underwent emergency treatment.

Mr Ellwood said: "Her boyfriend was walking behind with one of the girls they had met. They were all just talking and walking - and then he just heard the screams.

"He told me that she was talking to him one minute, then gone the next."

Mr Ellwood recalled how police broke the news to him at 5am on Wednesday.

"I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I just started crying my eyes out. I couldn't accept it. I still can't."

Hours later he went to the scene with Terri's mother, from whom he is separated, and other family members.

"We went and had a look where it happened. The drop was just straight down. There's little paths going along the cliff-top and some veer off to the edge, where people go and have a look over the top."

He said there were no warning signs nearby.

Terri, who had three grown-up sisters and a brother together with an eight-month-old sister, had been going out with her boyfriend for several months. The pair were described as "inseparable".

Mr Ellwood said one of the first things she did when she arrived in Filey was to buy presents for him and her mother, who lives near Birmingham.

Mary Crossley, headteacher of Terri's school, St Bede's RC Comprehensive in Peterlee, said: ""She was an outgoing girl who will be sadly missed."

Terri had left school this summer and was planning to start a hairdressing course on her return from holiday.

North Yorkshire Police yesterday sent a rope team down the cliff to find out where the fall happened and are waiting to question the injured woman in hospital.