Housing association fined £1m over death of five-year-old girl

The court heard how she got into the lift used by her brother, who suffers from a degenerative neurological condition and is wheelchair-bound, to fetch his phone from upstairs in the house.

She put her head through a hole in a plastic panel on the front of the lift, causing her head to get caught between the ground-floor ceiling and the rising lift.

The panel was damaged in early 2013 and was not fixed or replaced – despite being noted by an Orona engineer following an inspection three months before Alexys’ death.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which brought forward the prosecution, said after the sentencing that Synergy, Aster Property Limited and Orona’s “negligence” had caused “a wholly avoidable tragedy, under horrific circumstances”.

Orona was fined £533,000 and ordered to pay £40,000 in costs.

Aster Property – another subsidiary of Aster Group – managed a contract with Orona to maintain the lift on behalf of Synergy Housing.

Synergy Housing accepted that any failings of Aster Property were part of its breach. Aster Property pleaded not guilty and the charge was ordered to be left on the court file.

An investigation by the HSE had found “a catalogue of failures” by Synergy Housing, Aster Property and Orona.

It concluded that the Brown family were not given critical safety information about the lift and that no risk assessment regarding the lift was carried out when they moved to the house in 2009, while concerns raised by Alexys’ brother’s health workers were not taken seriously enough.

Other problems with the lift’s safety mechanisms were identified from at least January 2011.

The lift was only serviced four times between 2009 and 2015, despite HSE guidance that lifts should be inspected every six months.

Leo Diez, an inspector at the HSE, said: “These companies failed in their duties to put systems in place to ensure the lift in the Brown’s family home was kept safe – more could have been done by Synergy, Aster and Orona.

“As a result of their negligence, a wholly avoidable tragedy, under horrific circumstances, has occurred where a five-year-old child has lost her life and a family have been left utterly devastated at the loss of their little girl.”

Speaking after today’s hearing, Lorraine Brown, Alexys’ mother, said: “The past three years have been unimaginable – the loss of Alexys has impacted our lives and our children’s lives immensely.

“To have this investigation brought to an end has now offered us some closure. Despite this part of our story coming to an end, the outcome will never be what we all wish for, nothing will ever bring Alexys back to us.

“Lexi was a loving, care free, angelic little girl who was full of energy, love and laughter. I hope that what has happened to our family sheds light on others in order to avoid anything like this ever happening again.”

Michael Reece, operations director at Aster Group, said: “I fully accept that at the time of the accident in August 2015, we had not done everything we should have to make sure the lift was defect free and that this contributed to the accident which so tragically ended Alexys’ life.

“We therefore let the Brown family down and for that I am truly sorry.”

He added: “We have reviewed every aspect of our lift maintenance and contract management processes to reduce, as far as possible, the chances of an accident involving our lifts from ever happening again.”

A spokesperson for Orona said: “We would like to express our deepest condolences to Alexys’ family following this terrible tragedy.”

Synergy Housing, of Link House, West Street, Poole and Orona, of Europa View, Sheffield Business Park, Sheffield, pleaded guilty to an offence under Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.