The Lydia Bishop case - the verdicts are in. The consequence - a fine.

[NorthernLurker]

I am really struggling with this case. Briefly Lydia Bishop was a 3yr old child who on her first day attending a previously well regarded nursery, was found tangled in a rope on a slide. She died. The subsequent trial saw the College who provided the nursery on it's site prosecuted for health and safety breaches and a nursery nurse who found her on the slide prosecuted for manslaughter by gross negligence. The jury found the college guilty and the nurse not guilty. I have no quarrel with either of the verdicts. In my view the nurse was negligent but so was everybody in the nursery that day.
For the college though - the sentence will be passed next week and available is an unlimited fine. This is the bit I can't get my head round. The college authorities allowed a play setting where something desperately unsafe was commonplace - tying a rope to a slide. They allowed a setting where the slide was blocked off by a barrier the kids could go round AND they enabled a setting where a child was missing for up to 20 minutes before anyone noticed. This same college received an Outstanding grade from Ofsted last month. I just don't know how Lydia's parents are supposed to feel like they have justice. Is a fine for an organisation anywhere near enough?

This wouldn't have happened if they had been doing their jobs properly but nope, nothing.

I would blame the prosecution. They brought an onerous charge on the nurse that failed for insufficient evidence. A lesser charge would probably have stuck but not have been career advancing for the prosecutor. Sadly it's all politics.

And I'm sure there was a need for a good nursery near the college, a need that will never be met. Nurseries everywhere will have to face increased insurance costs. Everyone loses except the local authority.

I do blame the prosecution. I don't think a prosecution against one nurse was ever really like to be successful.

I don't know what the sentence should be - I just know that £175,000 and an apology following a guilty verdict is no form of justice for this child's parents. She was trapped on the swing for TWENTY minutes!

Sorry swing should be slide

I'm local as well, heard a couple of people talking about it recently saying it wasn't the responsibility of just one person. No, but it was the responsibility of everyone who was supposed to be supervising those children. It's a horribly tragic case, poor little girl and her poor distraught parents, this outcome probably doesn't feel like justice.