Sentencing Very Large Corporations
| Author | Gary Betts |
| DOI | 10.1177/0022018316678967 |
| Published date | 01 December 2016 |
| Date | 01 December 2016 |
| Subject Matter | Crown Court |
Crown Court
Sentencing Very Large
Corporations
R (HSE) vMerlin Attractions Operations Limited, Stafford
Crown Court, 26 and 27 September 2016
Keywords
Sentencing, corporate criminal liability, Health and Safety offences, sentencing guidelines
The defendant company, Merlin Attractions, is part of a group which operates over 100 attractions across
the world. One of its attractions, Alton Towers, is the UK’s largest theme park, which attracts some three
million visitors each year. One of the park’s main attractions is the Smiler Rollercoaster. It is billed as the
world’s first 14-inversion rollercoaster and is designed to have up to five trains operating at any time,
each carrying 16 passengers. As is standard with similar multi-vehicle rollercoasters, the Smiler operates
with a ‘block-zone system’ in which the length of the track is divided into block-sections. Should a train
attempt to enter a block-section which is already occupied by another train, the system initiates a ‘block-
stop’, which halts the train behind until the section ahead is clear. In the event of a fault on the ride, the
operator would hand over control to the on-site engineers, who would then put the system into ‘main-
tenance mode’, enabling them to override the system. Once the fault had been rectified, the engineers
would send an empty train around the track to check that the system was clear of faults, and would reset
the system to resume ‘normal’ operating mode.
On 2 June 2015, the Smiler was operating with four trains when a fault occurred. The engineers
intervened, rectified the fault and took the downtime as an opportunity to add a fifth train. An empty train
was sent around the track, but failed to clear one of the track sections. The train was manually moved by
the engineers and a second empty train was despatched. This failed to complete one of the track’s
inversions and came to a stop on the track. The next train was loaded with passengers and was released
from the station, but the ride’s safety system intervened to automatically stop the train before entering
the section with the empty stationary train. The engineers overrode the system and allowed the ride
operator to permit the passenger train to continue, believing that the apparent indicated fault related to
the first empty train which had previously been removed. The engineers failed to appreciate there were
now five trains loaded onto the track, not just the four they could see in the station. Most of the track’s
length was covered by CCTV cameras; had the engineers checked the live footage they would have been
able to see the stationary train sitting on the track. The passenger train collided with the empty train with
the equivalent kinetic energy of a family car crashing into a wall at 90 mph. Passengers sitting in the
front row bore the brunt of the collision. Two passengers subsequently required partial leg amputations,
others suffered leg and rib fractures, internal injuries, whiplash and post-traumatic stress disorder. The
rescue operation took between four and five hours to complete, during which the 16 passengers were
stuck in the train with differing degrees of injury.
The Journal of Criminal Law
2016, Vol. 80(6) 403–406
ªThe Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/0022018316678967
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