Company behind Airmaxx 360 ride which killed eight-year-old Adelene Leong at the Royal Adelaide Show in 2014 plead guilty
THE owner of a Royal Adelaide Show thrill ride that killed a little girl faces significant fines after pleading guilty to breaching health and safety laws.
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A LITTLE girl died on a Royal Adelaide Show ride despite the machine not being fit for public use and having left children injured interstate just months earlier, a court has heard.
C,J & Sons Amusements Pty Ltd, a Queensland-based company that owned the 24- seat AirMaxx 360 ride, negligently “exposed” eight-year-old Adelene Leong to “death or serious injury” in 2014 by failing to properly maintain it.
Adelene, who was on holiday from Malaysia, was “ejected” from her seat at 12.15pm on September 14 as her mother Kim Neo Ng, 52, watched in horror, the Industrial Court heard on Tuesday.
But C,J and Sons and its co-director Jenny-lee Sullivan, 41, allowed showgoers to ride it despite it being the subject of complaints and injuries at royal shows in Sydney and Melbourne months earlier and having failed to undertake proper “due diligence” and safety maintenance.
C, J & Sons Amusements Pty Ltd, a Queensland-based company that owned the 24 seat AirMaxx 360 ride, negligently “exposed” eight-year-old Adelene Leong to “death or serious injury” in 2014 by failing to properly maintain it.
Adelene, who was on holiday from Malaysia, was “ejected” from her seat at 12.15pm on September 14 as her mother Kim Neo Ng, 52, watched in horror, the Industrial Court heard yesterday.
But CJ and Sons, and its co-director Jenny-lee Sullivan, 41, allowed showgoers to ride it despite it being subject to complaints and injuries at royal shows in Sydney and Melbourne months earlier and having failed to undertake proper “due diligence” and safety maintenance.
Those incidents, in which four children received head, neck and chest injuries – leaving one youngster hospitalised – were never recorded in a log book that would have highlighted the “risks” and multiple “design flaws” to authorities across the country.
Complaints also lodged with the company were not logged, the specific details of which were not aired in court but described by prosecutors as a “significant” failure.
While Adelene was above the minimum height requirement of 120cm – she was about 137cm tall – the court heard restrictions were lowered by the owners from 130cm without official permission.
No adequate height checks were undertaken by staff while prosecutors questioned whether the height was too low.
Despite detailed and lengthy investigations by police and the state’s safety watchdog, SafeWork SA, no cause could be determined that proved why Adelene was flung up to 10m from the carriage eight of the ride – in its first year of operation at the Wayville-based show.
She was unaccompanied and one of seven patrons on the ride. Police found her seatbelt fastened and the harness remained “secured” after the seat belt released.
Her left boot remained lodged between the belt and the bottom of the seat.
The $868,000 ride, which was imported from Spain in June 2012, was subject to poor inspections that failed to highlight inadequate seat restraints and substandard oil and electronic systems.
The court heard no designs were registered with safety watchdogs, which is illegal.
The ride had been subject to at least nine audits prior to the accident from private safety inspectors and Queensland, New South Wales, Victorian and South Australian government officials.
SafeWork SA “informally” observed the ride several times during the Adelaide show, according to a statement of agreed facts tendered with the court.
The company is facing fines of up to $1.5 million after yesterday formally admitting two breaches of health and safety laws that included failure to comply with its public duty and using machinery that had not been “authorised” under state law.
Ms Sullivan, formerly of Rosebud in Victoria, faces a maximum fine of $300,000 after admitting similar offences.
The court heard the family were in financial “ruin” and could not afford any major fine while the machine has been sold to a British firm, having never been used again in Australia due to workplace bans.
Charges against the company’s co-director and her husband, Clinton Watkins, 41, were dropped as were eight other charges against Ms Sullivan and the business.
The Advertiser revealed the prosecution last year and how Director of Public Prosecutions Adam Kimber SC considered laying manslaughter charges against the owners but declined due to the difficulties of obtaining such a conviction.
Safety Inspection company Safe is Safe Pty Ltd and its Queensland-based director Hamish Munro, 58, will face trial at a later date after the Full Court of the Industrial Court rejected his bid to have his case dismissed.
The court heard on Tuesday how his work was highly questionable.
Court documents showed the ride was the first of its kind imported into the country and needed special “device registration”.
Despite the court being told of several dubious inspections and audits by other Australian safety inspectors – including one who used the special device identification number from a “similar machine” - no one else has been charged over her death.
On Tuesday, the court was told Ms Sullivan admitted other blunders including not having adequate supervision of carnival workers who were seen by witnesses to be on their mobile phones.
While the owners said the workers had access to special mobile “apps” that controlled the ride’s music and noise levels, Ms Sullivan admitted that she did not have adequate checks on staff.
Having worked in the show industry for years, the pair admitted not having the experience to operate their own ride and failed to get adequate briefings from the Spanish manufacturer.
Prosecutors told the court that “spotters” were not in place to warn of any problems on the ride, which had 12 long radial arms measuring 6m in length with fibreglass carriages.
It took the ride almost two rotations to stop after the accident, according to Crown Prosecutor Stephanie Halliday, for SafeWork SA.
Each seat had special “body-contoured” material with over the shoulder “rigid” harnesses with three special hydraulic locks that helped restrained patrons.
But Ms Halliday said tests undertaken by a SafeWork inspector that found that two children of the same height as Adelene could escape the harnesses. Further tests showed how the ride continued despite some of the hydraulic pins not working.
Magistrate Michael Ardlie will sentence next month.
