Why the Summerland survivors won't stop fighting for justice

• Video report by Granada Reports Isle of Man reporter Joshua Stokes

Survivors and campaigners of the Summerland disaster say they will not stop fighting despite opposition.

They are urging the government to quash the inquest verdicts of death by misadventure given to those who died, as well as for the site to be turned into a memorial.

The Isle of Man commemorated 50 years since the fire at the leisure complex killed 50 people and seriously injured 80 more, on Wednesday 2 August.

People from across the island and from the mainland came to pay tribute to those lost, with two services - one at Kaye Garden memorial and another on the site itself.

Campaigners say the misadventure verdict is "wrong" and that the Kaye Gardens is not a memorial because it is not the place where people died.

Jackie Hallam, who lost her mum and friend in the blaze, along with the 'Apologise for Summerland' campaign group, wants a public admission that the death by misadventure verdict given to those who died was 'inappropriate'.

Jackie said: "It suggests there was a known voluntary risk taken for us entering that building, but we had a right to expect that building to be safe, there was no risk taken at all.

"The verdict meant that the deaths of our loved ones really were written off as though they were in someway to blame themselves and the evidence shows that the verdict was inadequate, and for us it is unacceptable for it to remain in the records."

Jackie attended the survivors memorial on the site and said there is a lot of work to do.

"The memory of Summerland will never go away for me, that's with me lifelong but as well as that I would really like to shut this back down in a box again but I can't because I've still got work to do," she said.

"That verdict will not stand as death by misadventure as long as I'm here."

Jackie had previously received a letter from the Chief Minister saying that without a change in the law, the verdict given to the 50 people who died, including her mother and best friend, could not be overturned.

Writing in a letter to Ms Hallam on Monday 31 July, Alfred Canaan MHK said: "On the point that you raised regarding revisiting the ‘death by misadventure’ verdict, I have thought this matter over very carefully.

"There is no such power in the Isle of Man Coroners of Inquests Act 1987 to change the inquests findings without first changing the law to permit.

"In order to hold a new inquest, one has to consider if there will be any new evidence toassist the inquiry now, compared with fifty years ago when the inquiry opened.

"On this basis, there are currently no plans to hold a new inquiry, however both myself and the Council of Ministers will continue to listen to survivors and bereaved families on this point."

Tina Brennan, who created an exhibition on the tragedy during the anniversary week, wants the Summerland site to be turned into a national memorial.

"The only viable option now is to put a proper memorial on that site, and that's what I've campaigned for 10 years and I'm not going to give up campaigning," she said.

"There will come a time when there will be a national memorial on that site and it will be for our Chief Minister at that time to stand on that memorial, on the anniversaries to come and for him to hold a one minute silence instead of me.

"I shouldn't be doing it, I'm just a mum, I'm just a nan, why should it be for me to stand on that actual site where those people were killed so horrifically and remember them and commemorate them?

"Our elected representatives over the last 50 years should be ashamed, that very few of them have actually ventured there to that site, at that time, had that courage to do it."

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