Almost three years on from that heartbreaking jumping castle tragedy at a Tasmanian school in Devonport the criminal case against the operator has begun. Six children died and three others were injured when a gust of wind blew the castle they were playing on into the air at an end-of-year-school celebration.
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00:00The castle's operator, Rosemary Anne Gamble, who was then trading as TasZorb, is facing
00:07a single charge of failing to comply with a health and safety duty.
00:12So prosecutors are alleging that the castle had eight anchorage points, but they claim
00:16only four of those anchorage points were used.
00:20They've also alleged that the pegs used to anchor this castle to the ground did not meet
00:25Australian standards.
00:27Now the defences argued that Ms Gamble was only ever supplied four pegs from the manufacturer.
00:34They were what she used.
00:36And the defences also argued that the wind was so strong on this day, that gust of wind
00:43that came through, that no matter, the anchorage system would have failed regardless.
00:49And what has the court heard so far?
00:54So we've heard opening statements from both the prosecution and the defence.
00:58We've also heard statements that have been read out to the court from children who were
01:02present on that day, and also teachers.
01:06So the court wants to ensure that children don't have to give evidence, so instead they've
01:11provided statements.
01:13Now some of those statements included the children talking about this gust of wind that
01:17came through.
01:18So we heard that the start of the day was relatively calm, it was a nice sunny day,
01:24but then around 10am a gust came through that's been described as a mini-tornado.
01:30Now children have described seeing the jumping castle lifted about 20 metres into the air
01:36and blown 70 metres across to the other side of the school oval.
01:40Ms Gamble did start weeping in court when these statements were read out, and emotions
01:45have been running high for a lot of the day.
01:49There's been about 15 to 20 family members inside the court, and it is worth noting that
01:53some of those family members did leave when some of the evidence was presented, including
01:59when vision of the deflated jumping castle was presented to the court.
02:03Now this hearing is going to run for two weeks, so the emotions are no doubt going to continue
02:09to run high.