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Abroad

Veteran Member
A designer store has admitted health and safety offences following the death of a four-year-old boy who was crushed when a 120kg mirror fell on him.

Austen Harrison suffered fatal head injuries at the Hugo Boss shop in Bicester, Oxfordshire, in June 2013.

Hugo Boss UK pleaded guilty to breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act and Management of Health and Safety at Work regulations.

[...]

Austen, [...], had been playing with the unfixed steel-framed fitting-room mirror which toppled on to him while his father tried on a suit in the shop at the Bicester outlet village.

An inquest jury at Oxford Coroner's Court earlier this year returned a narrative verdict.

Austen's death was an "accident waiting to happen", the coroner said.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-32993393
 
Designer clothing company Hugo Boss has been fined £1.2m over the death of a young boy crushed by a mirror at its Bicester Village store.

Austen Harrison, four, suffered fatal head injuries at the Oxfordshire outlet store in June 2013.

Oxford Crown Court heard the 120kg mirror had "negligently been left free-standing without any fixings".

The company had previously admitted breaching health and safety at work regulations.

In a statement, Hugo Boss UK said the accident had "shocked and saddened" the entire company and acknowledged "Austen's death was wholly avoidable".

It added: "There are no words the company can use to alleviate in any way the enormous suffering caused to Austen's parents in particular.

"We offer our most sincere regret and apology."

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-34153922
 
Poor little guy, hit with nearly 300lbs, why in the world would you not fix that thing so it couldn't fall over?
 
So dad was letting the four year old amble about the store while he was in a fitting room? Or was the mirror inside the fitting room? My mother had a rule for us in stores. We were to keep our "hands quiet". It meant no touching and to handle ourselves respectably in public. Any infractions and we were marched back to the car and no ride on the motorized horsie. This rule would have done poor Austen a world of good. I am not lessening the stores responsibility btw. Something that big could have taken out an adult let alone a tiny tike.
 
<snip> My mother had a rule for us in stores. <snip> Any infractions and we were marched back to the car and no ride on the motorized horsie. This rule would have done poor Austen a world of good. <snip>

Maybe he did have such a rule, and broke it that day - much the same way you said that you and your siblings sometimes broke it, except he got killed instead of missing a ride on the motorized horsie.
 
My mother had a rule for us in stores. We were to keep our "hands quiet". It meant no touching and to handle ourselves respectably in public. Any infractions and we were marched back to the car and no ride on the motorized horsie.

MIne had rules, too, that is when she let us even get out of hte car and there were never any pony rides, She didn't believe int he carrot and stick method, just the stick.
 
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