TWO former directors of an Ellesmere Port trampoline park are to be sentenced at Chester Crown Court after many people were seriously injured on one of its attractions.
An investigation was launched in 2017 after 270 known accidents occurred at the trampoline and adventure park Flip Out in Chester Gates Business Park happened in just seven weeks between December 2016 and February 2017.
Among those seriously injured were 11 people who suffered fractures to their spines, with adults and children being injured daily.
The accidents centred from a piece of equipment known as Tower Jump, said by directors at the time David Elliott Shuttleworth and Matthew Melling to be the largest in the world.
Shuttleworth, 33, of Barlaston, Stoke-on-Trent and Matthew Melling, 33, of Spinningfields, Manchester, each pleaded guilty at Chester Crown Court to an offence contrary to Sections 3 and 37 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, for failing to prevent exposure to risk.
Sentencing for the two defendants was adjourned for pre-sentence reports and a date to be fixed.
The investigation into the large number of accidents was led by Cheshire West and Chester Council’s Public Protection team.
The Council’s Cabinet Member for Homes, Planning and Safer Communities, Councillor Christine Warner said: “Our Public Protection team always deal strongly with businesses who put residents or visitors to the borough at risk. This business had a total disregard for safety regulations.
“Injuries in this case included 11 fractured spines, as well as other serious injuries. Those injured on a daily basis included both adults and children.”
After the series of injuries sustained at the trampoline park, the owners voluntarily shut the Tower Jump while investigations continued.
Melling and Shuttleworth both resigned as directors of Flip Out in January 2020.
