TV star Anna Ryder Richardson faces court over safety breaches

A local authority is prosecuting television presenter Anna Ryder Richardson and her husband for alleged safety breaches, after a tree fell on a mother and child at their wildlife park in Wales.
Ryder Richardson and Colin MacDougall own Manor House Wildlife Park at St Florence, near Tenby, and face charges by Pembrokeshire County Council in relation to the incident, which took place on 24 August 2010.
Three-year-old Gruff Davies-Hughes and his mother, Emma Davies-Hughes, were visiting the park when a tree collapsed on them, while they were viewing the wallaby enclosure. It has been reported that the emergency services battled for over two hours to free them from underneath the tree.
Gruff suffered serious head injuries and spent three days in intensive care at the University of Wales Hospital. His mother also suffered a head injury, as well as fractures to her leg, pelvis and arm.€
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TV star Anna Ryder Richardson faces court over safety breaches
A local authority is prosecuting television presenter Anna Ryder Richardson and her husband for alleged safety breaches, after a tree fell on a mother and child at their wildlife park in Wales.
Safety & Health Practitioner
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1) This is nothing to do with compensation culture, these are criminal proceeedings.
2) The tree was on private property where the owners make money from inviting the public onto their premises, and are therefor responsible for public safety.
3) We don’t know all the facts, the court will.
We don’t know all the details about the situation ie was the tree in a dangerous state etc. But to my mind if you visit a place of natural beauty where trees etc grow there is a certain amount of individual responsibility for the risks involved surely. I walk my dog passed a number of suspect trees and have notified my own council of one branch of a tree but its never been cut down as a result. I make sure I don’t walk under it. Surely if a prosecution is pending we don’t have the full facts?
Imagine how you’d feel if it your wife and child had been hurt.
Cutting down all trees would be excessive as trees do provide us with Oxygen, shelter use up Carbon Dioxide and give us a pleasant environment but they need to be checked. Very few trees in the UK are like the long lived Redwoods of the US.
There are 3 control levels for trees (1) let let grow (2) have a tree surgeon periodically inspect and advise (3) cut them down. If a tree grows for say 50 years, it stands safely for nearly all that time. The most dangerous time is on windy days when there would be no visitors and (just after). Do we cut all trees down because we live in a compensation culture. Trees help the ozone layer and provide an envigorated environment.