Newcastle City Council fined after decaying tree collapsed on girl

Ella Henderson died in hospital the day after being seriously injured at her school

A council has been fined £280,000 after a six-year-old girl was killed by a falling tree in her school playground.

Ella Henderson died in hospital after part of the willow tree collapsed on her at Gosforth Park First School, Newcastle, on 25 September 2020.

Newcastle City Council admitted breaching safety laws over her death. A court heard that the incident "could have been avoided".

Ella's parents said she "had so much to give" and had left "a complete hole".

South Tyneside Magistrates' Court heard the tree which killed Ella and injured a number of other children was known to be in a "poor condition" and should have been felled.

Prosecuting on behalf of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), James Towey said a "large section" of the rotten tree next to the school playground collapsed in strong winds and injured a number of children.

Although most of them sustained superficial injuries, the "weight of the piece of tree" meant school staff could not remove it from Ella, Mr Towey said.

Several other children were injured by the falling tree at the school in Newcastle

The court heard the tree had been inspected by a team from the council in February 2018 and the need for "further investigation" was identified.

But Mr Towey said there was a "lack of further detailed investigation and the extent of decay wasn't known but would have been revealed on closer examination, and no doubt the tree would have been felled".

It was an "accident waiting to happen", he said.

The council also admitted to failing to properly communicate the need for the tree to be further inspected with the school, with emails sent to other schools by mistake.

The judge said that the council had "failed to appreciate the seriousness" of the situation, while a later entry into the authority's computer system in April 2020 effectively wiped the "vital" note from February 2018 which called for a detailed inspection.

The council's £280,000 fine was reduced from an initial £420,000 due to its guilty plea. With additional costs, the council must pay a total of £288,201.80 within 15 months.

On behalf of Newcastle City Council, Ben Compton KC said it offered an unreserved apology to Ella's family.

He told the court that although the council did have a comprehensive tree strategy, "the bottom line is that that tree should have been felled".

He said since the incident all trees on council land are individually given a safety category which was "effectively a risk assessment".

Ella's parents, Neil and Vikki, watched proceedings via video link and both broke down when their victim impact statement was read in court.

"Life is so unfair, she had so much to give this world," her mother, from Newcastle, said.

'She should have been safe'

In a statement, she added "every single part" of her family's lives had changed and there was now "a complete hole in our lives".

She said: "It's not just the big things like birthdays, holidays and Christmas, it's also all the small everyday things like not washing her clothes, not buying her toys or clothes but knowing what she'd love, not setting her place at the table or booking a table in a restaurant.

She described "an empty chair at a table for four" and an empty bed on a holiday stay as "a constant reminder, not that we will ever need one, that she's not here".

"Seeing everyone's life move on and their kids and her friends getting older while we stay still; always with a six-year-old who will never get her front teeth is devastating.

"When I pass schools on the way somewhere and hear that innocent noise of children playing, I think, that was all she was doing. She was just playing ballerinas with her friends.

"The hardest part is that all we did was what every other parent does every day. She should have been so safe at school and knowing that I'm the only one who doesn't get to pick their child up every day is just the worst feeling.

"Knowing that I will never take her to school, or a party or holiday again - there are no words to describe how this feels."

Ella's family raised £30,000 for the Great North Air Ambulance Service in her memory after it responded when she was injured.