Student drinkers ‘mock Alton Towers victims’
VICTIMS of the Alton Towers Smiler crash branded university students ‘disgusting’ after they went on a pub crawl dressed up as rollercoaster thrillseekers.
Leah Washington – who lost a leg in the June 2015 crash – and boyfriend Joe Pugh hit out at the group calling themselves ‘7 Legless’, after they were pictured clutching glasses of lager while wearing home-made ride harnesses.
A student newspaper which reported on the event in Nottingham on Monday night said some of those present had ‘stuffed old jeans and tied them up to make fake amputated legs’.
Miss Washington, who was 17 at the time of the crash, yesterday tweeted: ‘Some people are so disrespectful.’ Mr Pugh, 20, a student at Huddersfield University who suffered serious injuries, added: ‘How awful and disrespectful can people get? Disgusting.’
The annual Nottingham fundraising pub crawl saw 3,000 students drink at 15 bars and three nightclubs and cost £56 a head.
Those involved in the ‘7 Legless’ group could now face an investigation by the University of Nottingham, which could throw them out.
In a statement, the seven-strong group apologised for offending the Smiler crash victims – but claimed their outfits had nothing to do with the incident. They said: ‘The costume was in no way intended to reference the tragedy that occurred on the Smiler rollercoaster at Alton Towers.
‘Its design was based on a traditional concept that has existed for several years and no reference was made to the Smiler by the students involved. “7 legless” was intended to be a pun on the name of the bar crawl, “7 Legged”, and the state of being inebriated.’
Adult rollercoaster costumes are readily available to buy online, with one outfit on Amazon being offered for sale since almost a year before the Smiler crash.
Vicky Balch, then 19, also lost a leg in the incident. The theme park’s owners, Merlin Entertainments, were fined £5 million after admitting health and safety breaches. Last night, the deputy editor of the Nottingham Tab student newspaper, Joseph Archer, denied the story was a ‘misrepresentation’, but admitted he hadn’t spoken to the group to ask what had inspired their outfit because the bar was ‘very busy’.