Rising rate of homeless in Derry alarming: charity
11-year-old’s drowning was an utterly tragic waste of a young life, says judge
A CHARITY that offers a daytime sanctuary to Londonderry’s street drinkers said it is concerned by the increase in the number of people presenting to them as homeless.
Foyle Haven, now operated by Depaul, has provided daytime shelter, washing facilities and hot food to the city’s most vulnerable addicts since 2001.
Depaul’s service manager for Northern Ireland, Deirdre Canavan, said she is concerned that 82 additional people came to them presenting as homeless as a result of drug and alcohol consumption.
Ms Canavan said this increase is putting additional strain on their services, already under pressure as a result of the Covid pandemic.
She said: “We have been dealing with major issues in terms of supporting people in Derry throughout the Covid period — new presenters, a rise in drug and alcohol abuse, overdose incidents and mental health interventions.
“Our staff have been very much on the front line since the beginning.
“We are dealing with more people even though on a number of occasions we have had to close our Foyle Haven day centre due to public health guidelines.
“In the long run we feel this is not a sustainable situation without adequate funding and the availability of other support services.”
Ms Canavan said Depaul has also noted a rise in the use of heroin and mood altering benzodiazepines over the pandemic.
She continued: “Since January of this year the charity has dealt with nine incidents of overdose and administered Naloxone — an opioid which when administered reverses the effects of a drug overdose — on 18 occasions.
“In addition, the charity has provided Naloxone training to a number of its service users and their family members.
“Depaul has been advocating forahealthhubtobesetupin Derry similar to the one opened in Belfast in 2019.
“But during the pandemic we have been able to secure funding for a number of health services where we are able to provide nursing interventions onsite, counsellors, a podiatrist and a dietician to help support vulnerable service users.”
Derry and Strabane Aontu councillor Emmet Doyle said he was familiar with the situation at Foyle Haven, which he said confirms what mental health professionals had forecast.
Mr Doyle said: “That Foyle Haven are under pressure from an increase in the number of people presenting as homeless is not news to me and it is part of a wider issue I am bringing to Council later this month.
“Our city is buckling under the weight of addiction which has been exacerbated by the lockdown forecast by our mental health professionals who warned we’d face a tsunami of difficulties including increased addiction.
“This is evidence of how vital it is that Derry gets the financial investment that will allow services like Foyle Haven to continue with the frontline work they do with our most vulnerable.”
‘Derry city is buckling under the weight of addiction’
THE operator of Drayton Manor theme park in England has been fined £1m over safety failings which led to the “utterly tragic” death of an 11-year-old girl on a water rapids ride.
Evha Jannath was “propelled” from a vessel on the Splash Canyon ride at Drayton Manor in Staffordshire during an endof-year school trip with friends from Jameah Girls Academy in Leicester on May 9, 2017.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which brought a prosecution against the park for not properly ensuring the safety of guests, said the accident “should never have happened”, adding Drayton Manor’s operators “failed to take the action that could have prevented Evha’s death”.
Drayton Manor had admitted breaching Section 3 of the Health and Safety at Work Act.
Sentencing Drayton Manor Theme Parks Ltd at Stafford Crown Court, Mr Justice Spencer said: “This was an utterly tragic waste of a young life.”
But the judge said there was “no prospect of the fine being paid” as the company operating the park at the time had since gone into administration, after years of losses brought to a head by the site’s shutdown during the pandemic.
The firm’s assets — including the park — were sold under a “pre-pack sale”, the court heard, and were under new ownership, with the attraction set to welcome visitors from April 12, according to its website.
Splash Canyon has never reopened since Evha’s death, and will not without the HSE’S agreement.
The judge said of the park’s operator: “There was a failure to make appropriate changes following prior incidents of passengers falling into the water of the trough. This posed a significant risk of drowning. The failure here was no-one identified the seriousness of the risk.”
The judge added safety breaches had gone on “over a long period of time”, adding: “The individual members of staff were not to blame, it was the system that was at fault.”
After sentencing, ex-leicester East MP Keith Vaz, who has supported Evha’s family, said the past four years have been “torture” for them and “lessons need to be learned”.
He added: “No-one has lost their jobs as a result of this, the company will not pay this fine, no individual has said they are responsible, but there remains a hole in the heart of the family.”
Evha was thrown from the raft while standing up, as it hit a wooden deflector panel on the water course’s final bend.
CCTV showed she was above water for a minute and half, before falling from a lift conveyor carrying vessels out of the rapids.
She drowned in about 12ft of water, also suffering significant blunt force injuries. Evha was not spotted by ride staff and the alarm was only raised because a member of the public saw her fall in.
The judge said: “There was a well-recognised risk that passengers would ignore the signs telling them to remain seated and would stand or move about within the ride.”
The HSE found inadequate or faded signage telling passengers to stay seated, inadequate staff training, an element of under-staffing and a lack of emergency planning for the ride, which opened in 1993.
It also found a CCTV system was static and only covered half the course.