Gala Bingo fined £25,000 for accident at Birmingham club
A BINGO firm has been fined £25,000 by Birmingham City Council following an accident at one of its clubs in which an 80-year-old man received serious head injuries.
The accident happened at the Gala Bingo site in Kingsbury Road, Erdington in June 2011. Kenneth Compton was driving off the premises when his car was struck by an unsecured barrier.
Birmingham Magistrates Court was told the security barrier skimmed off the bonnet of the car, through the windscreen striking Mr Compton on the head causing him to suffer a fractured eye socket, cuts and bruises. Mr Compton, who was dropping off his wife at the bingo hall when the incident occurred, also suffered from dizzy spells long after the incident.
Gala Leisure Ltd pleaded guilty to offences under the Health and Safety at Work Act (1974) and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations (1999) during a hearing at the magistrates court. In addition to the fine, the company was also ordered to pay the city council £2,612 in costs.
Cllr Barbara Dring, Birmingham’s chair of the Licensing and Public Protection Committee, said after the verdict: “The failure to assess the risk and secure the barrier put members of the public at risk. As a result of the company’s irresponsible actions a person was hospitalised with serious head injuries.
“Gala Leisure Limited and other companies who use security barriers need to make sure that lessons are learned from this case, which could, as a worse case scenario, resulted in a death.”
Council officers working on the case also found that Gala Leisure Ltd had failed to consider the security barriers in their risk assessments.
Their report showed that at the time of the incident the barrier at the Erdington site was not secured with a padlock – although padlocks had been used until around February 2011. The investigation also revealed that the padlocks may have rusted and been removed, but were not replaced.
