Charges laid over fatal Tasmania 2021 jumping castle tragedy

ABC NEWS (Australia)

A Tasmanian company has been charged over the hillcrest jumping castle tragedy in 2021 in Devonport. Six children at the Hillcrest Primary School died when strong winds lifted a jumping castle into the air during an end-of-year event.

Transcript

00:00 On December 16, 2021, six children died and three were injured in a jumping castle incident

00:07 at Hillcrest Primary School in the state's northwest in Devonport. It was the final day

00:14 of school. It was meant to be a day of celebration, but the jumping castle was lifted into the

00:20 air by a gust of wind while the children were inside it, causing them to fall about 10 metres

00:27 from the jumping castle. And so who was the operator of the jumping castle and what have

00:33 they been charged with? So the owner of the jumping castle is a company called TasZorb.

00:40 The director of public prosecutions has filed a complaint in the magistrate's court in Devonport.

00:46 They've charged TasZorb, the operator of the jumping castle, with a category two offence

00:51 under the Work Health and Safety Act. What this means is the offence alleges that the

00:56 operator failed to comply with a health and safety duty in a way that exposed the children

01:01 to a risk of death or serious injury. The Work Health and Safety regulator, Robin Pierce,

01:08 says this decision comes after significant investigation work undertaken by WorkSafe

01:13 Tasmania and involved many months of work and a large number of documents have been

01:18 prepared and considered by the investigators and the director of public prosecutions in

01:23 order to reach this decision. But Ms Pierce also said throughout the year she's been in

01:29 contact with the families of the children who died or were injured in the incident and

01:34 she wants to express her condolences to each of them. But right now the matter is before

01:40 the court. The ABC hasn't been given a court date at this stage. We've also not heard from

01:46 the families just yet. I should also say as well a coronial investigation hasn't been

01:51 able to proceed at this point until the WorkSafe investigation was completed.

01:56 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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