Tim Green KC in successful defence of company and director arising out of serious fairground accident

At his sentence hearing on Tuesday 7 May a company director avoided immediate imprisonment and received a suspended sentence arising from a very serious accident on a fairground ride in 2018. The defendant was an experienced professional inspector of fairground rides who was prosecuted by the HSE, along with his company, after a passenger was thrown from a ride he had approved and crashed into hoardings sustaining life changing injuries.

The HSE alleged the defendant had failed to notice faults in the design and maintenance of the ride, and instructed four experts to give evidence of these shortcomings in an unusually complex and sensitive case.

At the sentence the HSE also alleged that the defendant’s offending was of high culpability and harm category 1 (the highest category). Tim persuaded the Judge that this assessment was excessive, and that whether or not the offences alleged caused the accident was not material to the sentence. On this basis, the Judge agreed that a suspended prison sentence was justified.

District Judge Ikram then applied the same reasoning to impose a modest fine of £51,000 on the offending company.

Tim was instructed by Ben Henry of Jonas Roy Bloom Solicitors.

Tim was recently short-listed for Health and Safety Silk 2023 at the Chambers UK Bar Awards. Tim specialises in health and safety work, product safety, public inquiries, and inquests. His profile can be found here.

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