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.

We had hoped to just hand it over to lawyers but because the one we spoke to said the youth worker would be liable but it would end up costing us to sue him, we have been left in limbo.
I’ll sit down with DH this morning and work out who we should talk to today. I am so grateful for all the thoughts and advice.
Obviously if possible we would like some compensation for our daughter, but we also want to ensure that the youth worker is properly dealt with and that this trust exercise is never done with another child. I want to make sure that no other family goes through this.

Yes. Good plan for today OP. Don't give up.

Also pkease be reassured as a PP has commented how resilient children's brains are - it will take time but I'm sure your poor daughter will be back to normal bit by bit.

Yes I did find that hugely reassuring to read. She was so different in the first few weeks that I felt absolutely heartbroken. We did speak to our GP about it and are waiting to see a neurologist, but it is complicated as there is no paediatric neuro under our health authority.

Sinkgirl - also not teenagers as such , they start at 8, then the eldest at present are 14 ish I think .

Please speak to a different lawyer with specific expertise.

@TooDamnSarky is right. You should speak to a different lawyer.

No win no fee (or contingency fee) cases are harder and harder to come by these days but they weren't impossible when I was still working in the field a few years ago.

I'm sorry if you've said but have you checked your home insurance etc for legal cover.

And injury to your child like this is horrific and I am so sorry you are going through this.

I have done a lot of drama classes as a kid and still do theatre now. The falling trust exercises are common. But in a child theatre group I would expect them to have a mat to catch the child. What idiots the theatre company and GL have been.

What an appalling incident. Is this something the HSE would get involved with?

The lawyer is not wrong about suing someone that has no assits or insurance you pay out money (legal fees) and then money chasing them with baliefs but if they have no assits or insurance you end up out of pocket with little to no chance of getting money.

Get second opinions but as it seems quite complicated no win no fee might be difficult to come by but you might find a firm to do so.

You asked for previous to be deleted as may compromise legal action

Why on earth have you reposted?

Ask for it to be deleted, and contact a solicitor and follow their advice.

I remember your original thread and was appalled. Falling trust excercises are very common, but NEVER from a height unless the person is trained how to fall and the catchers trained how to catch as you would have in a dance move for example).

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.*

That only relates to theatre performances, not classes. I have done both (been a licensed chaperone abnd run drama classes) and there are very few regulations with regards to classes. I had a ratio of 1:15 and my insurance covered me up to 1:16 but many, many dance and drama classes run with much higher ratios.

Private teachers and organsisations employing them MUST have public liability insurance and preferably Professional Indemnity too. As this teacher does not have any such insurance you need to seek proper legal advice and sue them personally against negligence. This will probably be financially disastrous for them. They could lose everything which is why the insurance is such a necessity. I pwesonally would not let a lack of insurance deter you. You may not end up with anything if they are declared bankrupt, but at the very least it will stop them teaching and be a warning to to others.

The only slight red herring is the "committee". Is there any paperwork/formal agreement in place? If there is then it could be the case that the committee is classed as the organisation and is liable. In some of your posts you refer to them as a committee in others as a group of helpers.

Unless the group leader is self employed he is NOT responsible for insurance

His employee is

The theatre group

employer

I will ask DH what the formal structure of the committee is. They were asked to help ( DH was specifically asked by the YW to help him with funding) as at the time the youth worker was running it on his own. DH feels foolish as he trusted the people involved and as he stepped into an existing structure he didn’t ask questions that he might have done otherwise. He did ask about safeguarding , and was reassured that the youth worker had an advanced check. Neither he nor the other committee parents knew that the YW was doing this or any other fall exercise, the chair had sat in on some classes but this hadn’t been done, and although my dd had done it before in a slightly different way, she hadn’t mentioned it to me.
I have reposted after getting the initial thread deleted as frankly we don’t know where to turn and I don’t know where else to ask for advice. I have left off all the detail that I feel might be too personal regarding the youth worker and the theatre manager. We have been told there is legally no point in suing the YW so I felt I could now repost. I don’t know what is the right or wrong thing to do, I am floundering around not sure how to proceed . We have done various things suggested by posters in my first thread as I did screenshots so that I could refer back to it.

He is self employed, and ran the group alone on that basis, but recently has been paid by the committee to run each workshop, and a mother who is a committee member , or the YW, collected the payment from the children at each session.

If he has been paid by the committee then the committee are ultimately the ones who will be held responsible for either providing insurance or ensuring that the self employed teacher they contracted had insurance.

You can't just decide to set up classes without putting procedures in place. I had insurance, Child Protection Policy, Behavioural Policy, Data Protection Registration and various other thing in place. The committee have been very naive.

Ultimately if I have got the gist of things correctly, the theatre manager is simply hiring a space in their venue. The theatre's responsibility begins and ends with the facilities they are providing. if a child was injured by a failing at the theatre itself eg. falling masonry or unsafe electrical socket, then their insurance covers that but ultimately its the professinal judgment (or lack of it) by the teacher that hs caused this incident.

Yes I agree the committee have been naive. As the youth theatre was an existing group before the committee, I think they each separately assumed that everything was already in place. As DHs role didn’t involve signing a room agreement, and we are not in contact with the committee members, we can’t ask what the structure was and why insurance wasn’t in place. All we know is that the room hire states that insurance must be in place and shown, and that this wasn’t checked or mentioned to the chair.

It's a really muddled situation - I suspect lots of the other committee members were thinking along the same lines as your husband in assuming that everything was being done correctly.

I think that getting the local council Environmental Health Department to investigate it properly and, hopefully, take any action necessary would be a 'result' of sorts.

I'm pretty sure that it would be the Local
authority that would enforce H&S legislation in this case and not the H&S exec. but you would have to check INFO HERE on enforcement authorities]]

I think you would feel a little better if you knew that it had been investigated properly and I'm not sure that's the case so far.

BTW In cases like this it's not unusual for the 'organisations' not to apologise. They are probably unsure whether they should in case of admitting liability. I doubt very much that it means that they don't care or that they are not actually sorry!

Sorry Cross post

We have informed the appropriate team at the local authority . As far as we can tell we have spoken to all the relevant authorities . Dd has given a statement to H and S but so far we haven’t been asked for one.

if you can get an emailed copy of the risk assessment or relevant policy then you can see when the document was created in case they have done it retrospectively. Open in word and click on file and the details appear on the screen including last modified and created dates.

Good luck with this and hope you all feel better soon

Thank you, I will see if they will email it to us.

How is the activity funded? Is it by a registered charity, or by the theatre (I presume a registered charity)?

I Agree whether he has insurance isn't your issue, have you got legal cover with your house insurance? I'm surprised the local h and s aren't taking it further.

I would get a second opinion from a really decent personal injury specialist- avoid the no win no fee set up. Without seeing all the facts it’s hard to advise but from the structure you have advised it doesn’t sound like the liability is as straightforward as you have been told. You could do with some specialist input, I can recommend a few really good ones I have worked with but they’re all London based- message me if you’d like their details. Most will gave an initial conversation but it won’t be legal advice until instructed, it should however help clarify a few things.