HSE to prosecute council for deaths of girls on river walk

A council is to face criminal charges over the deaths of two teenage girls who were swept down a fast-flowing stream on a school river walking trip, the Health and Safety Executive announced yesterday.

An inquest has already established that the deaths of Hannah Black, 13, and Rochelle Cauvet, 14, were accidental. But the HSE's investigation of the tragedy has concluded that the girls' teachers were given inadequate information and direction before leading the one-week residential course near Stainforth Beck in Settle, North Yorkshire, in October 2000.

Leeds City Council will be charged with two counts of breaching regulations on health and safety at work.

The HSE indicated yesterday that it would be prosecuting the council for failing to prevent, as far as reasonably practicable, people outside its employment – including Hannah, Rochelle and other Year 9 pupils from Royds High School – being exposed to health and safety risks during the river walk.

It will also prosecute the council for failing to complete an adequate risk assessment in respect of river walking activities at Stainforth Beck. Both charges represent a contravention of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

"The conclusion of the investigation is that it is not the teachers who are to blame, but the local authority for failing to provide them with the right preparation," an HSE spokeswoman said.

A Leeds City Council spokeswoman said the local authority was considering the implications of the action and would take "appropriate legal measures".

Crown Prosecution Service lawyers concluded last August that there was too little evidence for a realistic prospect of convictions for manslaughter or lesser offences against the teachers, planning staff at their Leeds comprehensive, or education officials in the city.

A preliminary date for a hearing in the HSE case, at Leeds magistrates' court, has been set for 9 September.