Housing association fined £1m after death of young girl at home

A housing association has been fined £1m following the death of a five-year-old girl who became trapped while using a lift at her home in Weymouth.

A lift maintenance company has also been fined more than £500,000 over the case.

Bournemouth Crown Court heard how Alexys Brown’s family moved into the property in 2009 of which Synergy Housing Limited, as part of the Aster Group, became the owner.

The property had an internal lift used by Alexys’ brother who suffers from a degenerative neurological condition and is wheelchair bound.

On 13 August 2015, Alexys got into the lift to get her brother’s phone from upstairs. She put her head through a hole in the vision panel and as the lift moved upward, the five-year-old’s head got stuck between the lift and the ground floor ceiling. Alexys Brown died as a result of her injuries.

To ensure the lifts were maintained and repaired, Aster Property Limited managed a contract with Orona Limited on behalf of Synergy Housing Limited.

The contractual relationship was that Synergy Housing had an agreement with Orona for the maintenance and repair of lifts, including the lift at the property in which the Brown family lived.

Synergy Housing also had an agreement from June 2013 with Aster Property Limited, another company from the Aster Group, to arrange the maintenance and repair of lifts and to control the work.

The court heard that when one of the Perspex vision panels in the lift became damaged in early 2013, this was not fixed or replaced. In May 2015 an Orona engineer visited the property to inspect the lift and noted the vision panel was damaged.

An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive found a catalogue of failures by the three companies; Synergy Housing as the Brown family’s landlord which had primary responsibility for the safety of the lift at the property; Aster Property as the company to which responsibility for arranging lift maintenance issues fell; and Orona who were responsible for the relevant lift maintenance and repair work.

Findings by HSE during the investigation included:

• Tenants were not provided with safety critical information concerning the operation of the lift;
• No risk assessment was carried out following the change of lift user when the Brown family moved in;
• Concerns raised during service inspections were not addressed including:

- The Perspex vision panel had been damaged for up to 18 months prior to the incident. On 12 May 2015, an Orona engineer completed a service inspection and, in his report, wrote “Routine service visit - Glass in door smashed!” but this was not fixed or replaced;

- Problems with the emergency lowering and lack of emergency hand winding wheel during the whole of the Brown family’s tenancy, and which was shown in the documentation from at least January 2011;

- The key switch used to control operation of the lift had been modified from factory installation to allow removal of the key in any position. Because the switch was in the “on” position with the key removed, it could be operated by anyone at any time.

• Concerns raised by Alexys’ brother’s health workers were not taken seriously enough;
• According to HSE guidance, lifts carrying people should be inspected every six months but, in this case, the lift was serviced only four times between 2009 and 2015 and was not thoroughly examined since 2012.

Synergy Housing pleaded guilty to breaching Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. In addition to the £1m fine, it was ordered to pay costs of £40,000.

The company accepted that its duties were not to be delegated and that the failings of Aster Property were part of its breach. The charge against Aster Property was ordered to be left to lie on the court file and was not separately sentenced.

Orona pleaded guilty to breaching Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. It was fined £533,000 and ordered to pay costs of £40,000.

HSE inspector Leo Diez said: “These companies failed in their duties to put systems in place to ensure the lift in the Brown’s family home was kept safe – more could have been done by Synergy, Aster and Orona.

“As a result of their negligence, a wholly avoidable tragedy, under horrific circumstances, has occurred where a five-year-old child has lost her life and a family have been left utterly devastated at the loss of their little girl."

Diez added: “Safety-critical aspects of the use and maintenance of the lift were also missed. From December 2013 until 12 May 2015, the lift was not inspected at all – even though safety critical problems had previously been identified they were not rectified. In 2015, when the call-out report contained a warning, there was still a failure to act. Those breaches went unchecked over a long period of time during which the lift became more dangerous for the Brown family to use.”

Lorraine Brown, the mother of Alexys Brown, said: “The last three years have been unimaginable; the loss of Alexys has impacted our lives and our children’s lives immensely.

“To have this investigation brought to an end has now offered us some closure. Despite this part of our story coming to an end, the outcome will never be what we all wish for, nothing will ever bring Alexys back to us.”

In a statement issued following the hearing, Michael Reece, Aster Group Operations Director, said: “I fully accept that at the time of the accident in August 2015, we had not done everything we should have to make sure the lift was defect free and that this contributed to the accident which so tragically ended Alexys’ life. We therefore let the Brown family down and for that I am truly sorry.

“We exist to make a positive difference to the lives of our customers and the safety of our customers, colleagues and contractors remains our priority. In this case we did not meet the standards expected of us and we expect of ourselves, and that is a matter of profound regret.”

Reece added: “We have reviewed every aspect of our lift maintenance and contract management processes to reduce, as far as possible, the chances of an accident involving our lifts from ever happening again. Safety is not something we will ever be complacent about and our focus will remain on continuing to improve and learn from every safety concern.

“We inspected all our through floor lifts across our portfolio immediately after the accident and all were found to be safe and in good working order. We remain in contact with our customers to reassure them of the actions we have taken and to remind them what to do if they have any concerns at all about their lift.

“Our thoughts and deepest sympathies remain with the Brown family at what must be an incredibly difficult time. We will of course continue to provide them with any support we can as their landlord.”