Trampoline park owner may be jailed for not reporting broken legs

Trampoline park owner could be jailed for failing to report four children aged three to 11 breaking their legs

• A magistrates judge said the owner had shown ‘blatant disregard for the law’
• Philip Booth, 60, from Cardiff, will appear at crown court later this month

The owner of an American-themed indoor trampoline park could face jail after failing to report four children breaking their legs at the attraction.

A boy and girl, both three, and two more girls, nine and 11, were hurt while jumping on trampolines and into foam pits at Supajump in Trident Trade Park, Cardiff, between April 2018 and August 2019.

The venue’s director Philip Booth, 60, from St Mellons, Cardiff, was told by a district judge he had shown ‘blatant disregard for the law’ and the offences are so serious he would be referred to the crown court for sentencing.

In September 2022, after a prosecution by Cardiff City Council, Booth pleaded guilty to four counts of failing to report an accident which saw a person taken to hospital and two counts of failing to ensure people were not exposed to health and safety risks from using play equipment.

At Cardiff Magistrates’ Court on Thursday, District Judge Steve Harmes said: ‘I’ve assessed this case at the very high culpability, category two harm, because injuries such as this are serious and could’ve been more serious.’

Philip Booth, 60, from St Mellons, Cardiff, will be sentenced at crown court after failing to report four children breaking legs at his Supajump trampoline park

He said another young woman suffered a spinal injury at the trampoline park but Booth has not been charged over that incident.

According to its website, Supajump also has an amusement arcade and a candy store.

It says the trampoline park has around 20,000 square feet of interconnected trampolines with “angled walls, tricks airbag, slam dunk basketball, a battle beam and a ‘total wipeout’.

The judge continued: ‘That wasn’t identified and you won’t be sentenced for it, but that’s the sort of thing that can happen in these cases, so I don’t think my sentencing powers are adequate in this case.

‘You clearly and blatantly disregarded the law, disregarded the advice you were given by the council, and all these injuries occurred, none of which were reported, some of which there was an effort on staff’s part to minimise them by telling people to cross things out on forms that were handed in about what happened.

‘So for all those reasons, I’m going to commit you for sentencing to the crown court.’

The judge said he would have only had the power to sentence Booth to a maximum of six months behind bars.

He made an order banning the identification of the children involved.

Booth will be sentenced at Cardiff Crown Court on April 27.

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