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£100,000 penalty for care home after teenager drowns on day trip (17 March 2017)

Date: 17/03/2017
Duncan Lewis, Legal News Solicitors, £100,000 penalty for care home after teenager drowns on day trip

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has prosecuted a Kettering-based care home company, after a 16-year-old boy drowned at a disused quarry on a day trip.

The Old Bailey heard that two 16-year-old boys who were residents at Castle Lodge Home near Ely in Cambridgeshire were taken on a day trip to Bawsey Country Park near Kings Lynn in Norfolk – the park is a disused sand quarry containing parkland and flooded pits.

The two boys went into the water at the pits, despite the presence of signage warning the public not to swim there.

The court heard that one of the two boys became trapped in weed on the bottom of the pit and drowned. His body was recovered later.

An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive into the incident on 16 July 2013 found the two residential support workers who had accompanied the boys had very little experience – and did not attempt to prevent the children entering the water.

No risk assessment was carried out prior to the trip – and Castle Homes’ procedures were ineffective in ensuring the safety of the children while on trips outside the home.

Castle Homes Limited, of High Street, Rothwell, Kettering, in Northamptonshire pleaded guilty to breaching Section 3 (1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.

The company was fined £80,000 and ordered to pay costs of £20,000.

After the hearing, HSE inspector Anthony Brookes said:

“This boy’s tragic death was entirely preventable if the care home had planned properly and managed the risk of taking residents to the abandoned quarry.”

Duncan Lewis Personal Injury Solicitors

Duncan Lewis Personal Injury Solicitors can advise those who suffer injury in swimming accidents caused by negligence on how to make a no win no fee claim for compensation – including swimming accidents which take place on package holidays or in England and Wales.

Claims for swimming accidents have to be made within three years – children can make personal injury claims up to the age of 21.

Duncan Lewis can advise on claims relating to swimming accidents which include poorly maintained swimming pools, public swimming pools, hotel swimming pools, school swimming classes, diving accidents, failure to provide lifeguards, sports accidents, drowning accidents and cryptosporidium infections.

Our specialist claims solicitors offer supportive legal advice to families whose loved one has lost their life in a drowning accident caused by negligence and who wish to make a claim.

For expert legal advice on no win no fee Swimming Accident Claims, call Duncan Lewis personal injury solicitors on 0333 772 0409.

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