Hillcrest tragedy: What’s happened so far in criminal trial
Fresh evidence on the Hillcrest jumping castle tragedy has been laid out at the Devonport Magistrates Court this week. Here’s what’s happened in court.
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A criminal hearing into the Hillcrest Primary School jumping castle tragedy has finished its first week of trial at the Devonport Magistrates Court.
Jumping castle owner Rosemary Gamble, of the local company Taz-Zorb, has been charged with one count of failure to comply with health and safety duty category 2. She has entered a plea of not guilty.
Six children, Zane Mellor, Peter Dodt, Jalailah Jayne-Marie Jones, Addison Stewart, Jye Sheehan and Chace Harrison, died after the jumping castle was flung 10m in the air during an end of school year function.
The hearing is expected to go until November 15.
What has happened in court so far
DAY ONE: Officers details photos taken after incident
The police officer who was immediately in charge of the site where six children died after falling from an airborne jumping castle at a Devonport school has described in detail hundreds of photos he and his colleagues took that day.
Tasmania Police Constable Dean Wotherspoon was among the first responders at Hillcrest Primary School on December 16, 2021, attending some of the dead and injured children and, later, documenting the scene.
During evidence in the Devonport Magistrates Court on Tuesday, Constable Wotherspoon said hundreds of photos were taken that day, including the final resting place of the jumping castle and the Zorb arena barrier, which ended up wrapped around a bunch of trees.
Constable Wotherspoon also described photographs of Zorb balls laying on the school oval, with blood stains on them.
Prosecutor Madeline Wilson read out witness accounts from those present at the Hillcrest Primary School oval on the day of the tragedy – many of them from children.
Many statements described the wind event that lifted the jumping castle and the nearby Zorb balls into the air as a “mini-tornado”.
Ms Wilson said the jumping castle was dragged along the ground before becoming airborne.
Ms Gamble’s defence lawyer Chris Dockray said East Inflatables, which manufactured the jumping castle used on the day of the Hillcrest tragedy, did not provide his client with the proper equipment and instructions to use the device.
He said Ms Gamble was only given four pegs 10mm in diameter for the jumping castle and was not given an operating manual for the inflatable.
DAY TWO: Jumping castle quality assured in email
The company that sold an inflatable jumping castle to Taz-Zorb owner Rosemary Gamble about six years before it was at the centre of the Hillcrest school tragedy assured her the product was up to standard.
“Our products are produced according to Australian standards, even certified by the most strict European standards,” East Inflatables employee Fiona Chen said to Ms Gamble in an email around the time she bought the jumping castle.
“Hence, don’t worry about product quality.”
Also on Wednesday, photographs of the blood-stained jumping castle were shown to the courtroom.
Tasmania Police Senior Constable Dean Wotherspoon, the first witness on day one of the hearing, continued giving evidence on Wednesday.
While he was on the stand, the court was shown pictures of the jumping castle that police had re-inflated after the tragedy.
The jumping castle had visible blood stains on it.
The court also heard evidence from East Inflatables sales manager Andy Chen via Zoom, who said through a translator that Ms Gamble should have received eight pegs when she ordered the jumping castle.
Her defence lawyer, Chris Dockray, said she had only received four pegs when she purchased the inflatable.
Australian law requires a minimum of eight pegs when operating a jumping castle.
When queried, Mr Chen told the court that the number of pegs sent with the jumping castles “averages four to eight”.
DAY THREE: ‘We just ran to the kids’: Taz-Zorb worker
When Taz-Zorb worker Jesse Barrett saw a jumping castle at Hillcrest Primary School become airborne, he said he looked over at his colleagues Rosemary Gamble and Robert Monte “to see if it was real”.
“And then, we just started running after it,” Mr Barrett said in court on Thursday.
During evidence, Mr Barrett and Mr Monte said they were hit by an airborne inflatable barrier while chasing after the jumping castle on December 16, 2021.
“As I was on the ground, it came around again – but I managed to duck it,” Mr Barrett said. “The jumping castle touched the ground for a split second, and that’s when the kids fell out.
“And then it went up again, and I didn’t see when it landed.
“We just ran to the kids after that.”
Once the jumping castle landed, Mr Barrett told the court he went to check if there were any children in it.
“But there wasn’t,” he said.
“We just went to the kids and helped them. Rosemary was on the phone with the ambulance, and we were doing CPR.”
Also while on the stand, Mr Monte told the court they only used four pegs to secure the jumping castle, despite having around “six or seven” extra ones available.
He also said the pegs were mixed in terms of type and was unsure whether they were installed on an angle.
“I thought they were, to be honest. We had a lot of trouble trying to get the pegs down because the ground was incredibly hard,” Mr Monte said.
>>> FULL REPORT: DAY THREE HERE
DAY FOUR: Weather expert blames ‘dust devil’
A weather expert has told a court he is “absolutely certain” that a “dust devil” was responsible for a jumping castle becoming airborne at Hillcrest Primary School in December 2021.
On day four of the hearing into the tragedy, University of Tasmania climate science lecturer Nicholas Earl-Jones took to the witness stand to describe the weather conditions when the jumping castle became airborne on December 16.
Dr Earl-Jones described the wind blast that occurred at Hillcrest on the day as a dust devil – a “tornado-like” weather event – and he said it would have been hard to predict.
“It’s not completely impossible because they (dust devils) do form in other parts of the world at certain types of times in the day,” Dr Earl-Jones said.
“Scientists have studied these in places like the Arizona desert where the conditions are often very ideal for the formation of dust devils.
“And in that kind of situation, they can be predicted. But in Devonport, it’s impossible to predict with any kind of accuracy.”
In his expert evidence report on the weather event at Hillcrest, Dr Earl-Jones said there were likely multiple dust devils in the Devonport area that day.
>>> FULL REPORT: DAY FOUR HERE
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