£1.5m fine after girl crushed to death in lift at family home

Bournemouth Crown Court heard how Alexys Brown, aged five, and her family had moved into the property owned by Synergy Housing Limited
in 2009.

It was heard how on the day of the incident, 13 August 2015, Alexys had got into the lift to retrieve her brother’s phone from upstairs.

There was a hole in the Perspex vision panel of the lift. As she put her head through it, the lift moved upward, leaving her head stuck between the lift and the ground floor ceiling. She died from her injuries. BBC news reported that firefighters had to cut Alexys free as there was no emergency key or handle to lower the lift.

HSE found a catalogue of failures from both companies.

The lift had been serviced only four times between 2009 and 2015 and had not been thoroughly examined since 2012. When an engineer from Orona had raised concerns that the Perspex vision panel needed fixing in 2015, 18 months prior to the incident, the comments were ignored.

There had also been problems with the emergency lowering and lack of emergency hand winding wheel.

Tenants had not been provided with safety critical information about the use of the lift. There had been no risk assessment carried out for the needs of the Brown family – including for Alexys’s brother who was disabled and required a wheelchair – when they moved in.

Synergy Housing Limited of Link House, Poole was fined £1 million on 15 January and ordered to pay £40,000 in costs for breaching section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

Orona Limited of Europa View, Sheffield was fined £533,000 for breaching section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 plus costs of £40,000.

Charges against Aster Property Limited, part of the Aster Group which merged with Synergy Housing in 2012, were ordered to be left to lie on file.

Alexys’s mother Lorraine Brown gave a statement: “To have this investigation brought to an end has 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.”

Investigating HSE inspector Leo Diez 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.

“As a result of their negligence, a wholly avoidable tragedy, under horrific circumstances, has occurred.”