(Australia) A Healesville caravan park has been convicted and fined $475,000 after a camper was crushed by a falling tree branch.
Yarra Valley Park Lane Holiday Park Pty Ltd, that operated the BIG4 Yarra Valley Holiday Park, was sentenced in the Melbourne County Court after earlier being found guilty by a jury of a single charge of failing to ensure the workplace was safe and without risks to health.
The court also issued an adverse publicity order requiring the company to publicise the offence, its consequences, and the penalty imposed in an industry publication.
In March 2021, the camper was inside his tent on a designated site at the caravan park when a large tree branch fell onto his tent during the night, causing fatal head injuries.
WorkSafe investigators found park operators had not engaged an arborist for a general assessment of trees in the park since 2015 and did not have in place a documented system for inspecting trees or a policy on how frequently they should be inspected.
The court heard an inspection of 277 trees at the park conducted after the fatal incident identified 137 trees requiring risk mitigation works, including 85 requiring works within a year.
A jury found it was reasonably practicable for the caravan park to reduce the risk of falling branches by engaging an arborist to complete annual tree assessments of trees at the site and following the arborist’s recommendations.
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