A 12-year-old girl was seriously injured when she was thrown from a fairground ride at a carnival in Preston.
The girl was sat in the end seat of the High Roller ride at Lostock Carnival when the incident took place on 2 July 2011. The ride, which was owned and operated by Gary Gore, consists of a line of seats that move in a circular motion.
Leyland Magistrates’ Court heard the girl fell from the ride as it swung through the air and she landed on the platform below. She suffered fractures to her pelvis in five places, a lacerated bladder, cracked bone in her spine, a broken finger, and bruising to her lungs. She still has significant scarring.
The HSE had issued a nationwide safety alert following a similar incident on the same type of ride at a fairground in Halifax in June 2010, in which a disabled teenager fell from the end seat. The 19-year-old was left with bruising down her side and cuts to her face.
The alert banned fairground operators from allowing passengers to sit in the end seats of similar rides until safety bars had been fitted. Mr Gore received the alert from the Showmen’s Guild, the national association for fairground operators. He was given a further copy when an HSE inspector visited his fairground at Heaton Park in Manchester, in July 2010.
The HSE investigated the incident at Lostock and found that Gore had failed to install any additional safety barriers on the end seats, despite receiving the safety alerts. The regulator issued an Improvement Notice, which required a safety bar to be installed on the end seats.
HSE inspector Mike Lisle said: “Mr Gore failed to fit new safety bars to the ride, despite having over a year in which he could have arranged for this to be done. As a result, passengers were likely to have been put at risk for several months.
“Safety alerts are issued for a reason and there’s no excuse for them not to be followed. This prosecution should act as a warning to business owners of the potential consequences of ignoring them.”
Gore appeared in court on 15 February and pleaded guilty to breaching s3(1) of the HSWA 1974. He was fined £18,000 and ordered to pay £12,000 in costs.
In mitigation, he said he had complied with the enforcement notice by installing the bars and had no previous convictions.
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