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Alton Towers owner fined £5m over Smiler rollercaster crash Alton Towers owner fined £5m over Smiler rollercaster crash
(about 2 hours later)
The owner of Alton Towers has been ordered to pay a £5m fine over the Smiler rollercoaster crash that left five passengers with life-changing injuries and others seriously hurt. The owner of Alton Towers has been fined a record £5m for the “catastrophic” rollercoaster crash that left five passengers with life-changing injuries and others seriously hurt.
The judge said the company was guilty of a “catastrophic failure to assess risk” and should have had a structured system to ensure the safety of the ride. The judge, Michael Chambers QC, said Merlin Attractions Operations’ safety procedures were “woefully inadequate” and a “shambles” in scathing criticism over the Smiler crash on 2 June last year.
Merlin Attractions was fined following a two-day sentencing, which heard harrowing details of the collision, described as similar to a 90mph car accident. He added: “This was a needless and avoidable accident in which those injured were fortunate not to have been killed or to have bled to death.”
The judge, Michael Chambers QC, said: “This was a needless and avoidable accident in which those injured were fortunate not to have been killed or to have bled to death. The two-day sentencing at Stafford crown court heard how the crash was like a 90mph car accident, and that the victims waited nearly an hour in mid-air before paramedics were able to access the £18m rollercoaster.
“It was, in my judgment, aggravated by the lack of proper emergency access to the accident site, which meant that those injured remained trapped in great pain and distress hanging at an angle of 45 degrees some 20ft above the ground for four to five hours before being released by the emergency services and taken to hospital.” Chambers said Vicky Balch and Leah Washington, who each lost a leg, were fortunate not to have bled to death in the four to five hours they were trapped in the Smiler. On that day Alton Towers “fell well short” of the safety standards expected of the UK’s biggest theme park, the judge added.
Chambers said human error was not to blame, as the company had claimed, but that its engineers “were doing their best in a flawed system”. Outside court, the victims’ lawyer, Paul Paxton, welcomed the record-breaking fine but said “money alone will never repair limbs or heal the psychological scars”.
The firm, he said, fell far short of the safety standards expected of the UK’s biggest theme park and was “woefully inadequate”. He said the fine would have been £7.5m if the case had gone to trial, but he had to reduce it by a third because of the early guilty plea.
Vicky Balch and Leah Washington, who each lost a leg, were at Stafford crown court on Tuesday along with Joe Pugh, Daniel Thorpe and Chandaben Chauhan, who were also seriously hurt in the crash on 2 June last year.
Paul Paxton, the lawyer for eight of the victims, said he believed the £5m penalty was a record fine for the entertainment industry, but that “money alone will never repair limbs or heal the psychological scars”.
Standing on the steps of the court alongside the victims, he said: “Symbolically and practically, today marks a closure for what has been a long painful chapter for my clients, one in which they have frequently been exposed to the horrors of that day back in June last year.Standing on the steps of the court alongside the victims, he said: “Symbolically and practically, today marks a closure for what has been a long painful chapter for my clients, one in which they have frequently been exposed to the horrors of that day back in June last year.
“It’s worth remembering that this hearing is the first time that my clients have heard the full extent of the criticism against Merlin. To be candid, they have been shocked and disappointed by the catalogue of errors. The list goes on and on.“It’s worth remembering that this hearing is the first time that my clients have heard the full extent of the criticism against Merlin. To be candid, they have been shocked and disappointed by the catalogue of errors. The list goes on and on.
“The catastrophic failure to assess risk, the inadequate training, inadequate supervision, inadequate management, failure to communicate, failure to put in place safe systems of work.“The catastrophic failure to assess risk, the inadequate training, inadequate supervision, inadequate management, failure to communicate, failure to put in place safe systems of work.
“But this has not been about retribution. This has been about finding out why this accident happened and making sure that lessons have been learned, not just by Merlin but by others throughout the industry, and I think my clients can take comfort from that.”“But this has not been about retribution. This has been about finding out why this accident happened and making sure that lessons have been learned, not just by Merlin but by others throughout the industry, and I think my clients can take comfort from that.”
Neil Craig, the Health and Safety Executive’s head of operations for the Midlands, said: “When people visit theme parks they should be able to enjoy themselves safely. On 2 June last year Merlin Attractions Operations Ltd failed to protect their customers. They let them badly down. It is right that they have been held to account for those failings in a criminal court. In his sentencing, the judge rejected Merlin’s assertion that the crash was down to “human error”. It was, he said, the company’s “catastrophic failure to assess risk and have a structured system of work”.
Investigators from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which brought the prosecution, found that a chain of errors led staff to override a safety warning when an empty test carriage got stuck on the track in strong winds.
Engineers mistakenly believed the safety warning was a false alarm, the investigation found, and released the next carriage full of passengers, with the disastrous effect that it crashed at high-speed into the empty test carriage.
Engineers were “doing their best in a flawed system”, the judge said, describing the lack of proper safety systems as “a serious breach of a high duty of care which put thousands at risk of death or serious injury over a long period of time and which caused devastating injuries to a significant number of people”.
Chambers said he did not believe the crash had affected Merlin’s business, which turns over £50m a year, and said the fine would have been £7.5m if the case had gone to trial. It was reduced by a third, to £5m, after the company’s early guilty plea.
On the steps of the court alongside Balch, Washington and seriously injured passengers Joe Pugh, Daniel Thorpe and Chandaben Chauhan, the HSE’s head of operations for the Midlands, Neil Craig, said Merlin “let them badly down” and failed to protect their customers.
“It is right that they have been held to account for those failings in a criminal court,” he said.
“This avoidable incident happened because Merlin failed to put in place systems that would have allowed their engineers to work safely on the ride while it was running. This made it all too easy for a whole series of unchecked mistakes, not just the single push of a button, to result in tragedy.“This avoidable incident happened because Merlin failed to put in place systems that would have allowed their engineers to work safely on the ride while it was running. This made it all too easy for a whole series of unchecked mistakes, not just the single push of a button, to result in tragedy.
“Since the accident Merlin have made improvements to the ride and to their safety protocols and the lessons learned have been shared with the industry.” Nick Varney, the chief executive of Merlin, refused to say whether he would resign when he gave a short statement outside court.
Nick Varney, the chief executive of Merlin, refused to say whether he would resign or not when he gave a short statement outside court. He repeated the company’s apology to the victims and offered them support “for as long as they need it” and added: “Alton Towers and the wider Merlin group are not emotionless corporate entities, they are made up of human beings who care passionately about what they do.
“From the beginning, the company accepted responsibility for the terrible accident at Alton Towers and made an immediate, sincere and heartfelt apology to all those involved. I repeat that apology again now and did in court yesterday,” he said. “In that respect the far bigger punishment for all of us is that on this occasion we let people down with such devastating consequences. It is something none of us will ever forget and it is something we are absolutely determined will never be repeated.”
“In accepting responsibility and liability very early on, we tried very hard to make the whole healing and compensation process as trouble-free as possible for all those who were injured and their families. We’ve also strived to fulfil our pledge to support them in whatever way we could and I promise that support will continue into the future for as long as they need it.”
The judge heard how the victims waited nearly an hour in mid air for paramedics to arrive.
Bernard Thorogood, prosecuting for the HSE, said a series of human errors led to the crash on the £18m ride, but that the “fault here is with the employers”, not the staff.
A 254-page expert report commissioned by the HSE and submitted to the court as part of the proceedings found there were four human errors in the run-up to the crash, but criticised senior management for their “manifestly inadequate” governance of the ride’s technical monitoring.
The report said that an engineer had felt pressure to get the Smiler ride back into service after it developed a fault shortly before the crash last June. It also said Alton Towers management linked bonuses to “acceptably low levels of downtime” on their rollercoasters.
The court heard the victims were frustrated that there had been a delay of nearly 20 minutes before the first 999 call was made, despite a crowd of onlookers gathering within seconds of the collision at 1.51pm. Paramedics first arrived at 2.37pm, nearly 50 minutes after the crash, the court was told.
Footage released on Monday shows the catastrophic series of events leading up to the collision for the first time.
It shows an empty train starting a test run around the 14-loop rollercoaster at 1.40pm before it comes to a complete stop – known as “valleying” – in the bottom-most part of the Cobra Roll area of the ride at 1.41pm.
Winds gusting at 46mph caused the empty test train to stall, but staff failed to notice it was still on the track, the court heard.
The judge was told that warning signs on the ride were dismissed by staff as false alarms and they overrode a security feature that halted the ride.
The footage shows a carriage containing Balch, Washington and the other passengers being held at the top of the first loop for nearly eight minutes before it is eventually released at 1.51pm, after staff overrode the safety mechanism. The carriage plunges down the loop and smashes into the empty car.
The two carriages were “meshed together”, crushing the legs of those on the front row, and took nearly a minute and a half to come to a complete stop.
Horrified crowds can be seen gathering near the rollercoaster seconds after the collision as the seriously injured passengers scream for help.