Jail for owner of inflatable that exploded and killed girl

THE owner of an inflatable trampoline which exploded - killing a threeyear-old girl has been jailed for six months for health and safety offences.

- Sam Russell

Ava-May Littleboy was thrown into the air when the equipment failed, with a witness saying she went the "height of a house", a court heard.

Pascal Bates for Great Yarmouth Borough Council, which brought the prosecution together with the Health and Safety Executive, told magistrates Ava-May suffered serious head injuries in the July 2018 horror.

He said witnesses described her being thrown up to 40ft in the air on Gorleston-on-Sea beach in Norfolk.

Mr Bates said a second girl, aged nine, who had been on the trampoline suffered "no significant injuries".

Sentencing yesterday, Chelmsford district judge Christopher Williams told inflatable owner Curt Johnson: "This is a case of such seriousness I have to conclude a deterrent sentence is necessary." He added that Johnson was "wilfully blind to the risk" and that the inflatable "should not have been in use".