Evha Jannath died after falling from the park’s Splash Canyon ride in 2017, and Drayton Manor’s former operator has now admitted safety failings
Drayton Manor theme park has been fined £1 million over safety failings that led to the death of a child.
However the judge in the case said there was “no prospect” that the theme park would pay the fine after the company that owned it at the time has since gone into administration.
Jannath, who was 11-years-old and from Leicester, was visiting the theme park as part of a school trip on May 9 2017 when she fell from the Splash Canyon river rapids attraction. She was found floating face-down in the 12ft-deep water. Evha had fallen off a travelator into the water as she tried to escape the ride whilst playing a game with her friends.
An inquest concluded that her death was an accident, but the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), the government agency responsible for the workplace health and safety, launched a prosecution against the ride operator.
The HSE said that the park’s operators had overseen “systematic failure of safety”on the ride.
The two-day hearing took place this week and concluded on Thursday. The court heard that the park had been warned about safety issues on the ride just weeks before the 11 year old’s death. The prosecutor James Puzey highlighted the failing of the ride on Wednesday, which included CCTV that only covered 50 per cent of the ride’s course and a lack of water safety equipment.
The court heard that people standing up on the ride was also not a rare occurrence, and that the operator on the day of the tragedy had no training in attempting to rescue someone who may be in trouble or how to use equipment such as life belts and poles that were situated on the course.
The judge Mr Justice Spencer concluded that the park operator was “highly culpable” after failing to make changes to the ride after previous incidents in which people had fallen in. During the sentencing, he said: “Evha had a bright future. She was doing well at school and had said she wanted to be a teacher herself. This was an utterly tragic waste of a young life.
“The ‘thrill level’ of the Splash Canyon ride was intended to be relatively ‘low thrill’, and therefore suitable for children and family groups.
“But as the experts point out, that does not mean that the ride would be inherently safe, nor that the maintenance of safeguards would be any less important than on a ‘high thrill’ ride.”
Mr Justice Spencer also said that the members of staff were not to blame and that instead it “was the system which was at fault.”
Despite acknowledging that there was “no prospect” of the fine being paid, he concluded that it would be “wholly inappropriate to do other than impose the fine which the offence merited.
He added: “The public and Evha’s family must not be led to think that this serious offence, which resulted in the death of a child, can properly be met by only a nominal (financial) penalty.”
“I bear in mind there are other similar rides in the United Kingdom, I bear in mind that this theme park has been sold to another operator and the staff transferred over.
“It is important that lessons are learned and the seriousness of the defendant company’s failing in this case is marked by an appropriate punishment.”
