Child injured at actvity , follow up to previous thread.

[CharlesChickens]

Some of you may remember my thread last month. I had to ask for it to be deleted, as there were concerns it might compromise legal action.
So- my dd was seriously injured at a drama class that she does out of school. She was put on a table and told to fall backwards, for other children to catch her, as a “trust” exercise. The children failed to catch her, and her head took the full force of the impact. No mats, concrete floor. She has fractured her skull and had a severe concussion. She is recovering but not yet back to normal.
The activity took place at a local theatre, and had a small voluntary committee of parents, of which DH was one. (No one as far as we know, including the chair, knew the group leader was doing these trust exercises). The activity has been run at the theatre for decades and has a good reputation locally- I trusted the group partly because I trusted the reputation of the theatre.
The group leader was not insured, and although it states on the room hire agreement ( that DH had never seen before as it wasn’t his role, and the room had at times been given free) that proof of insurance must be shown or the room will not be given, the theatre had never checked that the GL had insurance.
We have spoken to a solicitor who felt that the GL would be found liable, but as he has no insurance or assets then there is no point in suing him.
The theatre did not report the event to RIDDOR , we ended up reporting it ourselves. The response from the theatre has been shocking, they clearly do not care about my child or us as a family.
DH obviously left the committee, but the new committee have insisted that the actvity was properly risk assessed and safe, and intend to continue with the same GL. He is a professional person who works with children. They are all voluntary parents, some of whom are friends of his.
We want to ensure no other child is injured, we have spoken on the telephone to the chair of trustees, he, like all the theatre people, is extremely defensive. They don’t seem to want to talk to us at all.
How to proceed ? I’ve left out a lot of detail re the GL and his behaviour after my dd was injured, but he didn’t call an ambulance and has focused on saving his own skin. Pretty much the same response from everyone.
We have had the worst few weeks of our lives, and are upset, stressed and I’m having nightmares and not sleeping well. Dd is back at school but only part time and I’m wondering if even that is too much.
We are not sure what to do now. Any advice welcome.
Sorry this sounds so stilted, I’m trying to get the main facts down without too much extraneous info.

CharlesChickens both your and your DH's reactions are very understandable, after such an awful event. I hope over time, as your DD recovers, that you will find your equilibrium once again. Also, that your DD can recover mentally. It must have been an awful shock to have placed that trust in her club-mates, only to find the trust was misplaced.

Yes. She is shocked. I think the other children tried to catch her, but she may have slightly bent her legs as the table was wobbly. The children weren’t holding hands, they just had arms out, it seems she fell straight through and they only partially broke the fall of her body, but not at all her head . Not a mark on her anywhere else.
She is very, very angry with the group leader.

I remember your other thread OP, it's a terrible thing that's happened to your daughter. You really need to see a solicitor, one that specialises in this field.

Until you do, please stop speaking to the people involved, you need everything to be in writing and it's best if you let your solicitor do that on your behalf. Otherwise you're just giving them time and ideas on how to cover their tracks.

Please concentrate your efforts on your daughter and her recovery, and let the solicitor deal with everything else.

See a different solicitor. Most people have some kind of personal legal insurance included as part of their house insurance or car insurance or similar. Don't be fobbed off with "they have no assets so not worth suing anybody".

Yes, I'm on the opinion that there must be some legal action that could be taken negligence wise? The theatre for not checking that the GL had the (legally?) required insurance? Does he even have a DBS??

@CharlesChickens but if they are a theatre group there are very strict rules and they are governed by child performance regulations and that is how they should be run. It is regulated by legislation. One adult and 12 children is too few.
I have just yesterday been to child employment to renew my chaperones licence and recheck that I understood the legislation. I have an enhanced DBS and am subject to interview every three years so more tightly regulated than teachers.

So much wrong with this. Surely a safeguarding issue anyway 're numbers? So sorry for you all.

one thing I would say is that the "risk assessment" was clearly inadequate.

It either wasn't done (and magicked up a month later) or wasn't done properly. I cant see any situation where allowing a child to fall off a table above a concrete floor without safety mats would be deemed safe.

The point of a risk assessment is not to eliminate risk entirely, but to spot the risks an minimise them:

It didn't need to be from a table
It didn't need to be over an unprotected concrete floor

These two things alone directly contributed to the injuries sustained.

Have you contacted the HSE? Or it may be that the local authority are responsible for health and safety at the premises. Either way they can be helpful in these instances.
Instruct a law firm that deals with injury and health and safety. They will deal with all of this. I'd advise that you stop all contact with the theatre and let it all go down a legal route.

I hope your ds makes a full recovery.

dd

Very important point @WillChellam

I've worked with those who sustained head injuries in 'accidents' at work, school, clubs etc. I would suggest you contact www.headway.org.uk You need to speak to a specialist head injury solicitor, there are some brilliant ones practicing and Headway can advise.

Surely the theatre are at least culpable in some way for failing to check whether he had liability insurance? I hope you get somewhere and that your DD makes a full recovery

The theatre seem culpable to me, they didn’t follow their room hire policy, I don’t know if that was a general thing or specific to the theatre group as they had been using the premises for free until recently. They changed their policy fairly recently and I don’t know if that was properly explained to the youth worker or the committee.
It is a Youth Theatre workshop, they don’t do performances as such, they’ve never done a show, at least not while my daughters have attended. They have always been in the theatre premises and were one of the groups that started off the theatre I think.
Ironically they do things like acting out possible bullying scenarios , talking about feelings. It is based on Forum Theatre, whatever that is.

Please stop giving so much of your headspace to figuring out the legalities. Get a good lawyer who can figure this out for you in a fraction of the time. Most likely on a no win no fee basis. And agree it needs to be a specialist law firm.

They have done that risk assessment afterwards! Lots of drama groups are lax about child protection and regard it as unnecessary faff, we didn’t have this in my day, etc. You will need to take them to court.

Ah, good old Augusto Boal. Why a group of (I assume) middle class teenagers would need Forum Theatre (part of “Theatre of the Oppressed”) I have no idea. Maybe it’s more Rainbow of Desires, which is altogether more wishy washy if I remember correctly (my degree was a long time ago!). Anyway, here’s some info in case you want to know what it is! en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forum_theatre

The venue itself must surely have insurance - I would have thought they’re responsible for ensuring that anyone using the venue has insurance or else they’re liable.

Agree you need to focus on your dd. Ask a solicitor to look into the legalities and keep a track of expenses - bear in mind your dd has years in which to make a damages claim so no immediate rush. Also speak to the HSE at council, they will be responsible for checking insurance in public venues and compliance with safety standards. If safeguarding issues have been raised, the group should have their policies and risk assessments available for example, you can also contact the relevant office at the local authority.

I also would seek another opinion.

I remember your story . I can’t see how anyone isn’t liable.

I also cannot imagine repeating an excercise that caused such a serious injury

If you can get no where legally I would review and comment on the group anyway I could

I'm with TooDamnSarky - get someone experienced and legal on this, windgate's Headway link looks a really good place to start. They will be better at sorting the legalities and leave you time to focus on DD.

When you start be clear what you want as an outcome of the investigation - presumably that the group is prevented from putting any more children at risk of the injury your child has suffered.

Good luck

Charles, I remember your heartbreaking thread and have wondered how your dd is recovering.

I have no legal advice but it seems impossible that no one is liable. We put our children in these clubs believing that it will benefit them and people in charge have a responsibility to safeguard them.

My only nugget of hope that I can offer is that children's brains are phenomenal. They are so complex that they are not yet fully understood. But it is known that they have the ability to recover from damage and the fact that you say you can see dd's personality returning is such a positive sign. It may be a slow process but I wish your daughter a full recovery both physically and emotionally.
And I wish you the strength to carry on without having too much of a negative impact on your own mental well-being.

I think it's the Local Authority rather than the Health and safety Executive who would deal with this? Does anyone know if that's correct? If so, what are they doing about it? They presumably could prosecute and if not prosecute they could check that the H and S procedures are improved.

No not all middle class! We live in a remote rural area, not an affluent area at all.
Thank you Dyslexic and everyone. I do want to have this out of our hands now. We have had to be the ones to call the local authority, to insist that the risk assessment , if there ever had been one, was not fit for purpose, clearly. To fight to get the group to stop running , either permanently or until things are truly resolved, and to get the group leader investigated. All this has been massively stressful on top of trying to care for my daughter.
The theatre should want to resolve this, they could have had a child killed on their premises, yet they are extremely defensive and do not want to listen to us. Because of where we live, everyone knows everyone else, it was suggested to us that we contact the head of the theatre. We emailed him with our grave concerns about the Youth Theatre continuing and he didn’t reply. He passed the email back to the general manager, the one who had not reported the incident, and we had a very aggressive email on the lines of how dare we go over his head . DH spoke to the chair of the trustees yesterday and he insisted that they had dealt with everything “professionally” , and that they had responded with care and compassion when nothing could be further from the truth. Apart from anything else this makes no sense as a business. They have massive amounts of funding from the LA and an arts org, on the basis of supporting community groups, yet they have failed to do the most basic checks on the groups that gain trust and respect under their flag.

The group leader has insisted that this utterly insane trust thing is in the textbook he uses and widely practised, and that it was my dds fault she was injured as she bent her legs as she fell.
The Health and Safety man who interviewed my dd said he’d been looking at YouTube videos and he couldn’t believe how widespread it is, but I think he may be mixing it up with the one done from standing.

This is appalling. I hope your DD is recovering well.
I think you need to put this in the hands of solicitors, would your home insurance cover you (legal expenses add on)? They will be best placed to determine who to pursue. On the face of it the theatre could/should be liable. Personally I would stop investigating/communicating yourself and put in hands of lawyers.