A school trip to a Thorpe Park turned into a terrifying ordeal for two
teenagers as they were thrown about inside a dangling car, a court heard today.
The boy and girl were sitting in a mobile gondola on the Zodiac Enterprise
ride at Thorpe Park in Surrey when a support snapped, leaving it dangling.
The pupils, from St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, remained inside the car as
it repeatedly crashed against the ground each time the contraption rotated.
Woking Magistrates Court heard that the ride's controller, Abigail Baldwin
pressed the emergency stop button but watched helpless as the car crashed
repeatedly before the ride finally came to a stop through its own momentum.
Two mangers from the park, Keith Workman, 46, from Walton-on-Thames, Surrey,
and Christopher Edge, 58, from Witley, Surrey, each deny one charge of failing
to discharge duties under the Heath and Safety at Work Act in connection with
the incident in September 2001.
In a statement read to the court, the girl, who was 14 at the time of the
accident and who cannot be named for legal reasons, said: As the ride started
to lift I heard a bang from the back of the car.
It sounded a bit like two pieces of wood banging. I thought nothing of it,
the ride continued to rise and and go up.
But she soon heard a friend in the car behind screaming before she felt the
car drop at the back and hit something as it reached he ground.
She said: I hit my head on the car gate. The car started to go up again and
again hit something on the way down.
The ride went up another three or four times hitting something each time.
I could see bits of wood I thought were bits of the car flying past into the
car behind.
As the car passed the control box I screamed at the girl to stop the ride.
She was crying and kept saying, 'I can't' .
Ms Baldwin told the court she was at the controls when she heard a large
bang and looked up to see a piece of the fence flying through their air as the
dangling car crashed against it.
She reached for the emergency stop but the car crashed with each rotation as
it slowed down.
She said: Following my hitting the emergency switch, as the car came down
the back was repeatedly hitting the fence and as the ride got lower it was
hitting the floor as well.
