Parents hit with £100,000 bill after child knocks over a statue

Insurance company accuses mother of ‘negligence’ for allowing child to destroy artwork

A family has been asked to pay nearly £100,000 after a child knocked over a valuable sculpture in a community centre.

The five-year-old boy was caught on CCTV touching the artwork in the community centre in Overland Park, Kansas.

The sculpture can then be seen tumbling down onto him before a worker at the centre carries the damaged sculpture away.

Now the community centre want the boy’s mother, Sarah Goodman, to pay for the the Aphrodite di Kansas City work which has been valued at $132,000 (£99,400).

However Ms Goodman has refused to pay for the damaged artwork, saying it was simply an “accident”.

She told the Kansas City Star: “It’s clear accidents happen and this was an accident.

“I don’t want to diminish the value of their art. But I can’t pay for that.”

Ms Goodman added that the sculpture was in a main walkway and “not protected” in any way.

“No one would ever to expect that to come into a place that kids are invited and have to worry about a $132,000 piece of art falling on their child,” she added.

The insurance company responsible for the artwork have argued that the family’s “failure to monitor” the five-year-old boy was the cause of the accident.

Artist Bill Lyons who created the piece has confirmed that it cannot be fixed or restored.

He told ABC News: “It’s beyond my capabilities and desires to rebuild it.”

A spokesperson for the community centre, who filed the claim with the insurers, wouldn’t comment on the incident, simply saying: “It will be up to the insurance companies to get this worked out.”