Alton Towers Smiler sentencing: Theme park fined £5m after crash that left five seriously injured

Judge describes accident as ‘catastrophic failure’ that could have been ‘easily avoided’

Alton Towers operator Merlin Attractions has been fined £5m after admitting health and safety breaches led to the crash on the park’s Smiler rollercoaster that left five people seriously injured.

A total of 16 people were injured in the crash in June 2015, with two teenage girls requiring leg amputations.

Judge Michael Chambers QC called the accident a “catastrophic failure” by the company involving basic health and safety measures.

He said the “obvious shambles of what occurred” could have been “easily avoided” by a suitable written system to deal with ride faults and a proper risk assessment.

The judge added: “This was a needless and avoidable accident in which those injured were fortunate not to have been killed or bled to death.”

Alton Towers originally blamed the accident on “human error”, but prosecutors argued the fault lay with Merlin Attractions and not individuals.

The Judge said: “Human error was not the cause as was suggested by the defendant in an early press release.

“The defendant now accepts the prosecution case that the underlying fault was an absence of a structured and considered system not that of individuals’ efforts, doing their best within a flawed system. Members of the public have been exposed to serious risk of one train colliding with another when a computer control system was reset, having been overridden to address a fault.”

Following the crash, it took up to five hours for all 16 people in the rollercoaster car to be freed from the wreckage.

“Those in the front row bore the brunt of the collision and had their legs crushed in the tangled steel,” Judge Chambers said.

Vicky Balch and Leah Washington each lost a leg in the accident, and Joe Pugh, Daniel Thorpe and Chandaben Chauhan were all seriously injured when the fully laden carriage hit a stationary car in front.

Lawyers for Merlin said that the company had seen a £14m drop in revenue as a result of the crash, and had “got the message”, making 30 changes to safety measures, equipment, and training.

Speaking outside the court, Paul Paxton, who represented eight of the victims, said his clients had been “shocked and disappointed by the catalogue of errors”.

He said: “Symbolically and practically, today marks a closure of what has been a long and painful chapter for my clients – one in which they have frequently been exposed to the horrors of that day back in June last year.

“The court has imposed what we believe is a record fine for the industry, but of course money alone will never replace limbs nor heal the psychological scars.”

Merlin Entertainments chief executive Nick Varney also spoke outside the court and said the company had “let people down with devastating consequences”.

Mr Varney said: “From the beginning the company has accepted full responsibility for the terrible accident at Alton Towers and has made sincere and heartfelt apologies to those who were injured.

He added: “We were always aware that we would end up here today facing a substantial penalty, as has been delivered by the court today.

“However, Alton Towers – and indeed the wider Merlin Group – are not emotionless corporate entities. They are made up of human beings who care passionately about what they do. In this context, the far greater punishment for all of us is knowing that on this occasion we let people down with devastating consequences.”

He added: “It is something we will never forget and it is something we are utterly determined will never be repeated.”

Additional reporting by PA