The Sir Edmund Hillary Outdoor Pursuits Centre (OPC) was fined $40,000 and ordered to pay $480,000 in reparations by Judge Anne Kiernan in Auckland District Court yesterday after admitting two charges under the Health and Safety in Employment Act.
It admitted it failed to take all practicable steps to ensure the safety of employee Jodie Sullivan and that it failed to take all practicable steps to ensure no action or inaction of Ms Sullivan harmed any other person.
Ms Sullivan was the instructor in charge of the group when six Elim Christian College students and their teacher Tony McClean were swept to their deaths in a flash flood in the Mangatepopo Gorge, in the central North Island, on April 15 last year.
The Department of Labour said the OPC should have known from the heavy rain on the day that the group should never have entered the gorge, even though the water levels were not high when they entered.
The OPC should also have either subscribed to Met Service's weather warning service, or kept an eye on its website for weather warnings on the day of the tragedy.
By doing so they would have picked up three severe weather warnings the day of the tragedy, the Department of Labour said.
Department of Labour central region health and safety services manager Brett Murray said lessons should be learned from the tragedy.
"No employer or workplace wants to be haunted by an experience like this. And I hope that today's outcome will encourage others in the adventure tourism industry to look critically at their operations to ensure that they and their clients are never put in a similar position," he said.
"I would urge them to start working on this today. Because this is the kind of tragedy that can happen to anyone involved in the adventure tourism industry if they don't manage workplace hazards properly."
He said the department would now engage with the industry to promote increased safety awareness and tighter risk management.
The OPC through its lawyers Adam Ross and Michael White said the centre admitted its failings, though they said few if any other outdoor centres subscribed to the storm warning service prior to this event.
Judge Kiernan ordered the OPC to pay $60,000 reparation to each of seven victims' families and a further $5000 to each of the four survivors of the tragedy.
The victims were Mr McClean, 29, and students Natasha Bray, 16, Portia McPhail, 16, Huan (Tom) Hsu, 16, Anthony Mulder, 16, Floyd Fernandes, 16, and Tara Gregory, 16.
Mr Ross and Mr White said the OPC's culpability level was low and that it should not be fined as the centre did not need to be deterred or denounced any further and that it had made several changes to improve safety.
But Judge Kiernan saw the level of culpability as high.
"There is a high degree of risk in this activity, and therefore there was a high degree of responsibility to your staff and those they were supervising, especially given that they were supervising children," she said.
"This was a tragedy that shouldn't have occurred and a tragedy which could have been avoided."
Parents of those killed said they were pleased with the outcome and with the restorative justice efforts of the OPC.
But they said no court sentence could provide a sense of closure.
"Loss of children can't bring a closure. Loss of a loved one can't bring a closure," Jennifer Fernandes, mother of Floyd, said.
"It's always going to be there, but at least we know that OPC has pleaded guilty and have acknowledged their fault and that brings a little bit of satisfaction."
All the parents said the reparations award -- $60,000 to each of the families of the seven deceased and $5000 to the four survivors from the school -- was relatively unimportant.
"No amount of money will change the fact that I am now left childless. My future as I saw it is no more," Tara Gregory's mother Catherine Linnen said.
The college has yet to decide whether its students will ever attend the OPC again.
Elim College proprietor Luke Brough said he would find it difficult to ever send college students back, but Ms Linnen said it should be up to parents to decide as many other young New Zealanders had enjoyed their experience.
OPC chief executive Grant Davidson said Elim Christian College students were welcome back at the centre but in a time that is appropriate to them.
"Families are always welcome to visit the OPC and we hope to continue that interaction."
OPC trust board chairman Rupert Wilson said the centre would have a careful look at the decision before commenting on it.
