Pontins proprietor in court docket over loss of life of grandmother after ceiling collapse

The mum or dad firm of Pontins has appeared in court docket after being charged with company manslaughter.

Eighteen individuals have been injured on the vacation park agency’s Brean Sands web site in Somerset in February 2019 when a 40-metre part of structural ducting and ceiling fell inside an leisure space.

Wendy Jones, a 68-year-old grandmother, was amongst six individuals taken to hospital on the time. She died the next August.

Devon and Somerset Hearth and Rescue Service stated the fallen ceiling sections uncovered stay broken electrics.

The cost alleges the corporate was in “gross breach of its responsibility to take affordable take care of the security of Wendy Jones”.

It additionally alleges the corporate “uncovered Wendy Jones to the chance of loss of life from the collapse of the air flow ducting”.

Stephen Bennison, 59, from Farington in Lancashire, has been charged with failing to discharge common well being/security responsibility to an individual aside from an worker.

That refers to part three of the Well being and Security at Work Act 1974.

It’s alleged that as a self-employed contractor he “did not conduct his endeavor” to make sure that “members of the general public, together with Wendy Jones, weren’t uncovered to dangers to their well being and security, specifically the chance posed by overloaded ductwork within the Enjoyable Manufacturing facility”.

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Each defendants appeared at Bristol Magistrates’ Courtroom.

District Choose Lynne Matthews despatched the case to Bristol Crown Courtroom for trial, the place attorneys for the events will subsequent seem on Friday.

Neither get together entered any pleas and Bennison was launched on unconditional bail.