When a fire risk that surely would have been obvious to everyone, somehow wasn’t obvious enough
What happened?
Sixty Year 3 children (aged seven and eight) were waiting in costume to go into a school carol concert at a church. They were waiting in a narrow corridor and were holding ten inch lit taper candles, the costumes were flammable.
One boy’s costume, a home-made sheep costume made out of cotton wool balls, caught fire.
The fire was extinguished with some difficulty and the seven year old child received first aid at the scene. He was taken by air ambulance to hospital and was found to have sustained an estimated 45% burns to his body.
The injuries sustained by the boy will require on-going, regular, invasive surgeries throughout his youth and into adulthood and have been life changing for him and his family.
The school was prosecuted, and pleaded not guilty.
Legal Outcome
The school was found guilty after the trial for breaching Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act.
The HSE Inspector described the incident as being shocking and scary.
What can we learn from what happened?
It is hard to imagine how this could have happened, given the level of organisation and preparation required before this event, and the level of supervision provided by teachers at the time. This accident did not happen and the risks did not become evident because of a momentary lapse or an example of sudden pupil behaviour, the risks should have been very, very obvious at a very early stage.
The source of heat (the candle flames) being so close to the flammable costumes, the number of children (sixty), the age of the children (seven/eight years old), and the space they were in (a narrow corridor) – these made a serious accident about as inevitable as you can get, and could have led to a building fire with even greater consequences. The risk should have been eliminated by the children simply not using lit candles in such a way.
Source of Information
SHP In-Court