High school fined over child’s locker death

A secondary school in Chelmsford has been fined £16,700 and ordered to pay costs of £12,000 following an accident that saw an unsecured locker unit fall and fatally injure a young boy.

Chelmsford Magistrates’ Court heard that on 23 May 2019, nine-year-old Leo Latifi had been attending an after-school swimming lesson at the sports centre of Great Baddow High School in Chelmsford, Essex.

Leo and another young child had been waiting in the boy’s changing room for their lesson to start. However, inside the changing room, an installation of school lockers, one with its door missing, offered an improvised climbing frame for the child

ren.

As they climbed the front of the locker unit, it toppled forward, falling on Leo, who sustained a fatal head injury. The other child managed to jump clear.

An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that the locker unit – pictured above –was 180cm tall and weighed 188kg. It had not been secured to the wall to prevent it from toppling over, despite the unit having fixing brackets fitted as part of its structure.

‘I URGE ALL ORGANISATIONS TO URGENTLY CHECK THAT ANY FREE-STANDING FURNITURE IS APPROPRIATELY ASSESSED AND PROPERLY SECURED’

Great Baddow High School –  a comprehensive specialising in sports – pleaded guilty to breaching section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act and was fined £16,700 and ordered to pay costs of £12,000.

The court heard how several scenarios could have caused the unit to move, including an adult stepping onto the lowest edge of the unit to pull at a bag stuck in a top tier locker or to clean the top the unit.

After the hearing, HSE inspector Saffron Turnell said: ‘This tragic incident led to the avoidable death of a young child which has, and will continue to deeply affect his loving family, his friends and acquaintances.

‘This incident could easily have been prevented had the school simply ensured the locker unit had been securely fixed to the wall. However, it had failed to identify the risk associated with the potential for the unit to topple over and to put in place appropriate monitoring arrangements to ensure that it stayed secure.

‘At the inquest into Leo’s death last year, the jury agreed that this tragedy was si

gnificantly contributed to by a lack of appropriate assessment to a clear and obvious risk. This remained the case for around six years.

‘I therefore urge all organisations to urgently check that any free-standing furniture is appropriately assessed and properly secured.’

Leo’s family commented: ‘Nothing can bring back our precious Leo, and the prosecution hearing is yet another very difficult time when we will have to re-live what happened on the terrible day he died.

‘Families must be sure that their children will be kept safe when they are at school, in the care of other adults and organisations. We can only hope that no one else has to suffer what we have endured these past two years since our Leo lost his life.

‘If the prosecution makes other schools more alert to their responsibilities in looking after equipment that could put children at risk, then that is all we can ask for right now.’

In April, a school was fined £63,000 after a relative of a pupil tripped over a low wall and died.