Store fined £ 1.2m for mirror tragedy
DESIGNER brand Hugo Boss was fined £ 1.2million yesterday over the death of a four- yearold boy hit by a falling changing room mirror.
Austen Harrison was struck on the head when the freestanding 7ft looking glass, which weighed 18 stone, toppled on to him, a court heard.
The youngster was left with irreversible brain damage after the huge mirror – described as being balanced upright like a “domino piece” – came down on top of him as he visited the Hugo Boss store in Bicester Shopping Village in Oxfordshire in June 2013 with his parents Simon and Irina Harrison.
Austen, of Crawley, West Sussex, died four days later at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital. An inquest concluded the mirror should have been fixed to a reinforced wall at the shop.
Coroner Darren Salter described the incident as “an accident waiting to happen”. Hugo Boss later admitted offences under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999.
At Oxford Crown Court yesterday Judge Peter Ross said “it would have been obvious to the untrained eye” that the mirror posed a risk, adding that it was “nothing short of a miracle” that it had not fallen before.
There had been numerous “near misses” with mirrors at other stores across the country, the judge said, adding that Hugo Boss had a “corporate responsibility”.
The court heard monthly health and safety checks were introduced in Hugo Boss stores by 2000 but these did not take place in the Bicester store.
Steps have now been taken to enforce health and safety checks, with a specific review for mirrors in the company’s outlets, the court was told.