A company slammed for having “toothless dinosaurs” at Cassiobury Park has been fined £160,000 after a large Diplodocus fell on a five-year-old at another event.
Jurassic Encounter, an interactive exhibition with life-sized animatronic creatures on display, was criticised last year over dinosaurs with missing body parts during a Watford visit.
Today (December 18), Enfield Council confirmed that organiser Event 2020S Limited, previously Cultent Event Ltd, was found guilty of three health and safety at work breaches relating to an incident in Grovelands Park, north London.
It involved a child suffering an eye injury when a large dinosaur fell on top of him on July 26, 2021. As well as the £160k fine, Event 2020S Limited was ordered to pay £21k council costs by Highbury Magistrates’ Court.
Director David Lee, health and safety manager Julian Duncan, and production manager Yulong Zheng (aka Dylan Zheng) were charged with the offences. After failing to attend court to answer the summonses, warrants for their arrest were issued.
Enfield Council said it was clear to visiting officers at the time of the Jurassic Encounter event that such a large exhibit should have been placed on a flat surface.
It also claimed it requested fencing be installed around the site, as children were climbing on the dinosaurs, but there were no signs or displays preventing people accessing the exhibits outside of operating hours.
The council issued safety advice, but upon a second inspection a prohibition notice was issued to shut down the event. However, over a week-and-a-half later, investigators found Jurassic Encounter was still open and allowing customers entry – with the owners uncontactable on the day.
Lee, Duncan and Zheng were asked to provide health and safety documentation – including procedures, staff attendance records, daily checklists and the accident report – associated with the event on several occasions. They did not comply, the council said.
In April last year, visitors to the Cassiobury Park display said dinosaurs were “damaged” and “badly put together”.
Michal Rosenbaum branded it “awful”, adding: “I basically paid £60 to go to a free park where the broken dinosaurs can be seen without a ticket needing to be purchased.”
Two months later, there were similar complaints relating to a Jurassic Encounter event in Buxton, with locals calling it “a shambles” and a “terrible advert for the town”.
At the time, organisers avoided answering any Watford-specific questions and repeated their response to the Buxton Advertiser, saying they believed the event was "good value for money" and "huge amounts of positive feedback" had been received.
They added: “It is human nature to look at the negatives and to complain, that is something the public will always do no matter how good or bad an event is.”
Back in April 2022, a Jurassic Encounter representative suggested to the Watford Observer that missing parts could potentially be from vandals and children picking body parts off.
Jurassic Encounter organisers have been contacted for comment.
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