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Chessington Accident

This is horrible news. As far as the little girl is concerned apparently she is improving which is great news.

I'd be interested to know what actually happened. At the moment there is so much tabloid BS on chat pages and forums its hard to know what actually occurred.
 
My greatest sympathies lie with Jessica and her family in this sad incident, nobody expected it to happen! I also feel for Chessington in terms of their guest's witch hunt to close down the park over this one thing when all that needs doing is knocking back up some panels and a full HSE report.
 
My deepest sympathies for Jessica and her family.

Such a terrible accident but the OTT hate towards Chessie on Facebook is a bit much.
 
The negative comments are far outweighed by the ones of support for the girl. I think people's reaction to just a few trolling people is a little over the top - they should just be ignored.
 
My thoughts are with the girl and the family, really hoping she pulls through.

I think people on Facebook are jumping to conclusions and should not be just hating the park, it's not all the parks fault.
 
There's one very important phrase which, as a Law student, I always think about - innocent until proven guilty. We do not know the full story, so at this stage, Chessington should be treated as if they are innocent. Yes, they may be at fault, but we won't know for sure until the HSE report is published. :)
 
my thought are with Jessica and her family. I hope she fully recovers quickly.
I also feel for the staff that dealt with this incident, It must of been hard for them due to her being so young.

I am not going to guess over what happened, As its not fair to all involved. I will comment when the HSE report comes out.
 
Well I think we can take the mother's words as pretty reliable in terms of a description.

I have to say that this now looks extremely severe for Merlin and Chessington. They'll be looking at a considerable fine, costs and a lot of bad PR a la the recent Warwick Castle incident.
 
"Nothing to protect her"??? What the hell does the woman want? All floors to be made of soft foam? Notice she is no longer saying the fence was broken, just that the girl slipped through.
 
It's amazing how much accounts vary, even within the family, but the way I interpret the mother's words would be that the girl leaned against the fence and it gave way.

If the fence did give way - regardless of the specifics whether it was an entire panel or a couple of planks - then I think the park is in line for a thrashing by the legal eagles.
 
From the article

A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) inspector visited the Chessington theme park on Monday and has appealed for witnesses to come forward.
Click to expand...

Why would the H&SE appeal for witnesses if there was a big gaping hole? Surely it would be an open and shut case if there was clear fault at Chessingtons door?

The park is full of CCTV, surely their must have been at least one camera which caught the incident?

We all know that kids love to climb, we all know what kids can be like. Could it not be a case of the kid was playing as kids do and managed to fall and the parents are saying something different? I am not implying that this happened at all, just making an observation as I know how parents can change stories slightly to protect their kids and to make it look like they were doing no wrong.

It had to be said... Sorry if I have caused offence, but it just seems very strange that this investigation is still on-going for something which can be very easily proved. Upon investigation, was their a hole Yes / No. Yes = Chessingtons fault, No = ????

:-\
 
PeteA said:
From the article

A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) inspector visited the Chessington theme park on Monday and has appealed for witnesses to come forward.
Click to expand...

Why would the H&SE appeal for witnesses if there was a big gaping hole? Surely it would be an open and shut case if there was clear fault at Chessingtons door?

The park is full of CCTV, surely their must have been at least one camera which caught the incident?

We all know that kids love to climb, we all know what kids can be like. Could it not be a case of the kid was playing as kids do and managed to fall and the parents are saying something different? I am not implying that this happened at all, just making an observation as I know how parents can change stories slightly to protect their kids and to make it look like they were doing no wrong.

It had to be said... Sorry if I have caused offence, but it just seems very strange that this investigation is still on-going for something which can be very easily proved. Upon investigation, was their a hole Yes / No. Yes = Chessingtons fault, No = ????

:-\
Click to expand...

It's an investigation, they will gather as much evidence as possible. It will take months to complete, possibly even years. It's not a 'health and safety man' with a clipboard. The HSE are an independent government body. It's best to think of them more as police detectives than anything else.

We don't know exactly what's happened, but if she has leant against a fence, it is not unreasonable to assume it would be able to take someone's weight
 
Also, I guess they'll need to determine whose at fault. I.e. was it Chessington's for not maintaining the queue or was it the publics? Someone else damaging the queue minutes before, or the girl crawling/climbing over/under the fence?


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If its a clear cut case, they do not hang around. Its only when there is a question of doubt that an investigation goes on for longer. :-\
 
Afraid not, even if the park have said they are guilty already, it'd still take weeks/months to gather evidence and probably months/years to come to court.
 
Yeah, even if there is/was a big gaping hole in the fence. They still need enough evidence in court to support the case. Witness statements are one of the key things that will help, as well as finding out when the fence was last checked, if other guests had damaged it and so on. It's not a matter of saying 'yes there was a hole in the fence, here's a picture, case closed'. It will indeed take months even years until this goes to court.
 
Or they cant find anything wrong.... In all of my years of following ride incidents, I have never seen an appeal for witnesses by the HSE. Just the pessimist inside of me... :-X

:)
 
They do need someone to check it out. There could be two very different outcomes.
1. Hole in fence is examined and found to have just rotted. Bad for Chessington.
2. Hole in fence appears to have been made by a foot or something. Not as bad for Chessington.

So yeah.
 
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