A cinema chain has admitted health and safety failings after a young father died when a reclining seat crushed his neck.
Ateeq Rafiq, 24, suffered “catastrophic” injuries at the Vue in Star City, Birmingham, in March 2018, after becoming trapped under an electronic footrest while searching for his keys and phone.
Staff spent 10-15 minutes trying to release him before paramedics arrived and he was taken to hospital. He died a week later after suffering a hypoxic brain injury.
An inquest previously recorded a verdict of accidental death. At Birmingham crown court this week, Vue Entertainment Ltd admitted under the Health and Safety at Work Act that it failed to ensure that persons were not exposed to risk to their health and safety, and failing to make a suitable and safe risk assessment between January 1, 2007, and March 9, 2018, in relation to the use of powered cinema seating.
Rafiq, a father of one from the Aston area of Birmingham, had gone to the cinema with his wife Ayesha Sardar. At the end of the film he could not find either his keys or his phone and suspected they may have slipped down the side of the reclining seat, which had a raised footrest.
Advertisement
Very quickly the footrest started to come down on him. His wife tried to hold it up when she realised what was happening and alerted staff to help. Rafiq was taken to Heartlands Hospital. He died a week later.
A week-long inquest had been told the seat was missing a bar that would have allowed him to be released by hand and that staff could not get the buttons that operated the footrest to work. Emma Brown, the coroner, said there had been “missed opportunities to undertake comprehensive safety checks of the chairs”.
Sentencing was adjourned until July.