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.

But correct me if I’m wrong.

In this instance the tutor is the theatre group in so much as the tutor has been running the classes for some time calling themselves a theatregroup and after a while asking for parent volunteers to help out.

That's where this is muddy I think, Alexander. Is there an actual manager of the theatre group, or is the committee in charge? Who heads up the committee? Who is responsible for the processing of fees? Surely someone must be a signatory on the bank account?

Who exactly hires the room? The tutor or the group? There must be paperwork involved in the room hire.

It sounds like the theatre have been extremely complacent in not checking the GL has up to date insurance & not reporting the accident. It sounds like they know they are in the wrong but are closing ranks to save themselves.
I'm not sure the best way to proceed. Have you spoken to the local council? I think I would find a different lawyer as well. It just feels from what you've said, that everyone is hoping this will go away, whilst you are all in the middle of a dreadful situation.
I wish your dd all the best with her recovery. Do take care of your & your dh health and well being. You need to be fighting fit to deal with this for your dd

Yes , absolutely everyone hopes we will go away. The theatre have closed ranks, as apparently is typical for them.
The new larger committee insist that they made their own checks and that all was fine, they are presenting it as a random accident , and have said they will continue without changing anything, apart from sorting out insurance. (We assume they will stop doing this particular thing, but haven’t been told that this is the case).
Yes we have informed the LA etc, my concern is that assorted parties will close ranks and lie, and that the YW will happily continue. His total lack of judgement in doing this thing in the first place, and his behaviour after the injury, have left DH and I feeling that he is not safe to work with children. We have had such a near miss, medical staff said this could easily have been a fatal injury or left dd disabled. I can’t leave this and risk anyone else’s child getting hurt.
I find it shocking that rather than being completely open, actually looking at what went wrong, and properly addressing it, so that in the future children will be safer, all parties simply seem to want to sweep it all under the carpet. The stupidity of that is staggering.

When they say they made their own checks, presumably this didn't include checking whether either the group or the leader had insurance. Which is really basic.

Definitely speak to a proper injuries lawyer. Ask the lawyer the question directly: if the leader does not have his own insurance, does the responsibility to insure now default to the committee? And thence up to the venue itself?

Who actually is responsible for hiring the space, OP?

I haven't RTFT just the OP's posts, but if the theatre are closing ranks, not making changes and being so blasé about children's safety, is it the kind of thing a local paper would be interested in? I don't mean to sensationalise it, but I'd want to know if my child was attending something where a kid had such a serious accident.

I haven't read the whole thread either, sorry @CharlesChickens. You mentioned that the Theatre were supposed to check for people/groups hiring the hall and didn't, does that not also make them liable too? Apologies if this has been mentioned. Also I would be getting a better lawyer asap.
Your poor daughter, and your family deserve better than to be treated like this.

The hiring of the space is confusing too. At the time of the incident it would have been one of the committee (a particular person, not my DH) who paid for the room. She apparently did sign a room hire thing, but she wasn’t ever asked for proof of insurance. I assume that she didn’t read it, just signed it, as if she’d read it she would have mentioned the need for 8nsurance to the YW and the committee. For some time the room had been given free, only recently had they been paying for the room. So what on earth was going on then re insurance I don’t know.
We are getting further advice.
Thanks for the messages about my dd. She is starting to remember some things about that day. She is a bit better this week but not her old self yet. She tires very easily and her emotions are all over the place, although not as extreme as during the first few weeks.

Hopefully getting more advice will help, did you contact Headway?

Surely it doesn’t matter what happened historically, the fact is that there should have been safeguards and insurance in place, hopefully a really good personal injury lawyer can help you navigate that.