The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) is urging those responsible for children during outings to ensure their safety through proper planning and supervision. Additionally those responsible for public places should ensure that they have completed a risk assessment and taken sensible precautions to prevent access to potentially dangerous areas.
These warnings follow the conclusion of prosecutions against Tameside MBC and Clockwork Day Nursery Ltd following an incident where a four-year-old boy on a Nursery Holiday Club outing slipped 24 metres down an unprotected water channel in the Council's Stamford Park, Ashton under Lyne, and became impaled on a tree branch.
Tameside MBC of Wellington Road, Ashton under Lyne pleaded guilty to two charges under health and safety legislation at Manchester Crown Court, and were sentenced for one offence incorporating both contraventions, fined £25,000 and ordered to pay £23,565 costs.
At a previous hearing at Trafford Magistrates Court Clockwork Day Nursery Ltd of Stamford Street East, Ashton under Lyne was fined £21,000 and ordered to pay £6,779.10 costs after pleading guilty to two charges. They appealed against the sentence at Manchester Crown Court and but the sentence remained unchanged at a fine of £21,000 plus costs of £6,779.
HSE Inspector Catherine Willars said:
"These cases are not about stopping children having fun. Thousands of similar trips take place up and down the country safely every year. Outings can be important for children's development - it keeps them fit, helps them learn social skills and a sense of responsibility.
"However, there is an obligation to protect vulnerable people from dangers. This was a serious incident that could have easily been avoided had simple, sensible precautions been taken by the Nursery and the Council.
The outing on 7 June 2006 involved 20 children, aged between 4 to 11 years, visiting a public park. A four-year-old boy slipped and fell down the accessible and unprotected steeply sloping channel into a debris filled culvert, where he became impaled on a tree branch and received serious internal injuries.
Catherine Willars added:
Tameside MBC failed to recognise the potential for danger and did not make a suitable assessment of risks to the public, and in particular children, from the accessible and unprotected water channel. The Council have now acted to address the risks of the spillway and the Park remains open to the public.
The Nursery did not carry out a sufficient risk assessment for the outing and failed to ensure that the injured child was not put at risk. Children as young as 4 years old were allowed to play away from an 'agreed' area, unsupervised, for lengthy periods. This resulted in a group of children trying to cross the water channel during which a young boy lost his footing at the edge of the running water, slipped, and, with nothing to hold on to, fell 24 metres down a steep slope into a culvert filled with debris.
Supervision is critical and should reflect the needs of the party, the activities being carried out, the age and ability range of the children and the risks of the location.
Organised trips are now carried on by the Nursery with improved safety arrangements.
Source - HSE Website
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