Vue cinema has been levied with a fine of £750,000 because a 24-year-old father, Ateeq Rafiq got trapped under a reclining chair and die. Times quoted Judge Heidi Kubic QC who has said that the cinema had exposed film-goers to a serious risk of harm by failing to risk assess their “fatal crush hazard” seats.
This incident crushed his neck at Star City, Birmingham, in March 2018 when Rafiq and his wife Ayesha Sardar went to the cinema. While searching for his keys and phone Rafeeq got trapped under a footrest. To rescue him, the staff spent 15 minutes trying to release him before paramedics took him to Heartlands Hospital.
Reports suggest that during a week-long inquest he had been told that the seat was missing a bar that would have allowed him to be released by hand and that staff could not get the buttons that operated the footrest to work.
“Birmingham city council, which brought the prosecution, said their investigation revealed that 15 of the 141 powered reclining seats at the cinema had the wrong type of actuators fitted,” Times reported.
