Council fined $125,000 after child falls from diving platform

The girl fell through a guardrail onto concrete at the Southport centre in January 2021 while waiting to jump. Following the defendant’s guilty plea, Magistrate Joan White imposed the fine in Southport Magistrates Court. No conviction was recorded.

Diving associations commonly use the centre’s diving tower for training and competitions. At the time of the incident, public access was also available for an additional fee, an arrangement usually offered during school holidays. Patrons who paid received a wristband allowing them to use the tower.

The court heard that the girl’s family, including her parents and two sisters aged six and one, had paid for general pool entry but not access to the diving tower. They received no wristbands. After the children saw other patrons jumping and wanted to join them, their father accompanied them to the three-metre platform. The lifeguard controlling the jumps assured him his daughters could jump, and he returned to the pool deck. The four-year-old completed two jumps before falling while waiting for her third.

Workplace Health and Safety Queensland’s investigation found that, although the defendant had assessed risks at the centre, it had not conducted a specific assessment of public use of the diving facilities, including use by young children. Investigators also identified inadequate edge protection, insufficient supervision of people waiting on the stairs and platform, and a lack of routine wristband checks that allowed patrons without diving entry to access the tower.

After the incident, the defendant immediately closed the tower to the public. Other measures included drafting a lifeguard manual, assessing the risks of dive club use and installing permanent vertical bars as edge protection.

In sentencing, Magistrate White noted that health and safety duties require duty holders to actively identify and eliminate risks so far as reasonably practicable. She took into account the defendant’s regret, lack of previous convictions, cooperation with investigators and guilty plea, which avoided the time and expense of a trial. She also considered the steps taken to improve patron safety.

Magistrate White highlighted the seriousness of the child’s injuries and considered the Victim Impact Statement from her parents. She concluded that the incident had profoundly disrupted the lives of the entire family through effectively no fault of their own.

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