29 Jul 2020

Dreamworld operator Ardent Leisure pleads guilty over deadly ride accident

2:11 pm on 29 July 2020

The operators of Dreamworld have pleaded guilty in the Southport Magistrates Court to three charges relating to the deaths of four people in 2016 at the Gold Coast theme park.

A police officer stands in front of the Dreamworld theme park on Gold Coast on 25 October, 2016, after four people were killed when a park ride malfunctioned.

Photo: AFP

New Zealander Cindy Low, Kate Goodchild, Luke Dorsett and his partner Roozi Araghi died when their raft on the Thunder River Rapids Ride collided with an empty raft and flipped on 25 October, 2016.

A boy and girl, aged 10 and 12, were on the same raft but managed to escape.

A coronial inquest into the four deaths made findings of a series of failures at the park, including safety and maintenance systems that the coroner described as "rudimentary at best" and "frighteningly unsophisticated".

Ardent Leisure was charged with three counts of Failure to Comply with Health and Safety Duty, Category 2, under the Queensland Health and Safety Act.

The maximum penalty for each breach is $AU1.5 million - $AU4.5 million in total.

In a brief appearance, the company's legal representative Bruce Hodgkinson SC told Magistrate Michelle Dooley that Ardent Leisure instructed him to plead guilty to all three charges.

Formal arraignment will take place in the same court on 28 September.

- ABC

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