Inflatable that exploded and killed girl, 3, was ‘overfilled’

AN INFLATABLE trampoline was overfilled when it exploded, throwing a girl, 3, to her death, its operator has said at an inquest.

Ava-may Littleboy was playing on the attraction when it burst on the beach at Gorleston-on-sea in Norfolk on July 1 2018.

Witnesses said she was sent soaring, higher than a house, before landing on her face on the sand. Ava-may from Lower Somersham in Suffolk, died in hospital of a head injury.

Giselle Johnson, the director of

Johnsons Funfair Ltd, trading as Bounce About, said that on the day of the accident she thought the trampoline was overfilled.

“I did notice that the blue bit was overfilled so I went back to the shed and turned it off,” she said. “In my mind, the equipment had a lot of air.”

She said that she had put up a Minions-themed bouncy castle at the site that morning and her husband, Curt Johnson, put up an inflatable slide.

Jacqueline Lake, Norfolk’s senior coroner, reading from a statement that Mrs Johnson gave after the accident, said that Mr Johnson had “helped to set up the trampoline but left to go to Great Yarmouth while it was inflating”.

Ms Lake asked Mrs Johnson which pieces of equipment two child workers were involved in putting up. The children, a boy who was under the age of 16 and a girl under 18, cannot be identified due to reporting restrictions. They were referred to as Mr A and Miss B.

Mrs Johnson declined to answer whether it was Mr A’s “responsibility” to let her know when the trampoline was “at a point where the fan should be turned off ”.

She said she trained staff and Mr A had worked for Bounce About for around one month at the time.

Miss B “couldn’t explain why” she allowed Ava-may on to the inflatable “while it was connected to the fan and knew it should never be done while it’s still connected”, according to Mrs Johnson’s statement after the accident.

Mrs Johnson told the inquest that Miss B came to see her in the days after the accident. “She was in bits, I gave her a hug, we cried together. She didn’t know what she had done.”

The inquest is being heard by a jury in Norwich.