Alton Towers fined £5 million for Smiler crash

Alton Towers operator Merlin Attractions has been fined £5m at Stafford Crown Court after admitting health and safety breaches over The Smiler rollercoaster crash, which saw a couple from Barnsley suffer serious injuries.

Leah Washington lost a leg and her boyfriend Joe Pugh was seriously injured in the incident which "changed the lives of some of those injured in the most dramatic way", according to a judge.

Stafford Crown Court heard that the victims had watched with "disbelief andhorror" before ploughing into an empty carriage on the track, with the impact likened by the prosecution to a 90mph car crash.

The company was fined after the court heard that an engineer "felt pressure" to get Smiler back into service after it developed a fault shortly before the devastating crash.

An expert witness report, compiled by consultant Stephen Flanagan, also said Alton Towers management linked bonuses to "acceptably low levels of downtime" on their rollercoasters.

The Health and Safety Executive has said Alton Towers operator Merlin let their customers "badly down" outside court: