£5 million Alton Towers Fine

Alton Towers operators Merlin has been fined £5 million after horror crash on the Smiler rollercoaster.

22:56 28 September 2016

Alton Towers operators Merlin is ordered to pay £5 million after June 2015 horror crash that injured sixteen people, including two teenage girls who needed leg amputations.

 

Judge Michael Chambers QC said that the accident was “needless and avoidable” and that it was not caused by a human error as was suggested at first.

 

Paul Paxton, who is representing eight of the victims, said: "Money alone will never replace limbs, nor heal the psychological scars."

 

Meanwhile, Nick Varney, chief executive of Merlin Entertainments, said that the firm is determined to “never repeat” the devastating accident.

"In this context, the far greater punishment for all of us is knowing that on this occasion we let people down with devastating consequences," he said.

"It is something we will never forget and it is something we are utterly determined will never be repeated."

 

On Monday, the court heard how engineers failed to notice a carriage that had stopped midway around the 14-loop ride. They then assumed that there was a computer problem and over-rode the stop mechanism setting another train in motion and into the empty carriage.

 

Prosecutor Bernard Thorogood said that engineers did not have a system to follow which would safely deal with the issue. He added that the engineers had not read or seen the ride’s operating instructions.