A Co. Armagh farmer who admitted health and safety offences over the tragic death of his teenage niece was handed fines totalling £15,000 today (Friday).
Sentencing 49-year-old Derek Nummy at Newry Crown Court, sitting in Coleraine, Judge Peter Irvine KC said while his sentencing remarks focused on the defendant, “please be assured…the court bears in mind at all times, what happened to Abbie”.
As relatives of the defendant and his niece filled the public gallery and with more watching proceedings online, the judge lamented that “there is absolutely nothing this court can say or do that can reduce the undoubted pain and suffering of her parents, her brother and sister and the wider family circle”.
Judge Irvine said the pain and anguish was summed up in one sentence by Abbie’s dad David when he said in his victim impact statement that “my life, and my family’s lives, changed forever that day and will never be the same again”.
In fining Abbie’s uncle Derek, the judge said it was clear from the reports the defendant is “haunted by the events of that day” but that the amounts to be paid “of course cannot compensate, in any way, for the tragic loss of Abbie”.
On the day his trial was due to begin last March, Nummy, of Altnaveigh Road in Newry, entered guilty pleas to permitting a child to operate machinery and to an offence under health and safety legislation in that being a self employed person, he “failed to conduct your undertaking in such a way as to ensure, so far as was reasonably practicable, that other persons who may be affected thereby were not thereby exposed to risks to their health or safety” on November 30, 2019.
He had originally been charged with his niece’s manslaughter but that was left on the books by the prosecution.
Newry High School pupil Abbie Nummy had just turned 14 when tragedy struck on her grandfather’s farm in the Bernish area when she was crushed by a JCB shovel being driven by her then 12-year-old cousin.
Emergency crews and the Air Ambulance scrambled to the scene but tragically, despite their best efforts, Abbie’s life could not be saved and concluding his sentencing remarks, Judge Irvine ordered that the shovel be sold and the proceeds donated to the Air Ambulance.
Opening the facts of the case for the first time, prosecuting KC Philip Mateer told the court Abbie’s father “had been alerted by shouting coming from the farmyard” and jumping over the wall, saw his teenage daughter lying “lifeless in the yard”.
Abbie’s cousin, who was three months shy of his 13th birthday at the time, admitted he had been driving the shovel when his foot slipped off the brake and Abbie was “squeezed against the wall”.
Mr Mateer told the court the cousins had been working on their grandfather’s farm at weekends “for pocket money” but it was on the understanding that the defendant, their uncle, would be supervising them “at all times”.
The joint police and Health and Safety Executive investigation revealed that both children had driven the shovel at various times but on the day that tragedy struck, they had been moving tyres covering silage when some of the tyres rolled away.
Abbie, who had been in the cab sitting on an upturned bucket, jumped out and was in front of the shovel when the 12-year-old put the shovel into reverse but the heavy and powerful agricultural machine “jumped forward” and fatally injured the schoolgirl.
Mr Mateer said the post mortem examination revealed a cause of death consistent with crush type injuries.
Nummy’s criminal offence and culpability was founded in the fact that he had absented himself from the yard at the time of the accident so was not properly supervising the children and also the fact that no child under 13 is permitted in law to drive farm machinery of any kind.
As the senior barrister put it, “not withstanding that [law], the supervision that was afforded by the defendant was grossly inadequate”.
“The case and the evidence against this defendant is effectively grounded on his willingness to allow a boy under 13 to drive agricultural machinery and as well as willingly permitting that, his failure to ensure that the boy was sufficiently warned not to drive when he wasn’t present but he left the machine accessible when not present,” said Mr Mateer.
The court, the HSE and police investigations also revealed it was not the first time the boy had driven the shovel without supervision and also that he had been permitted to drive on a public road on at least one occasion.
Suggesting that Nummy’s culpability was high, Mr Mateer further suggested to the judge the case could be one to be met with a deterrent sentence and which could be used to send out a message to the wider farming community that it is not appropriate for children to drive machinery.
Defence KC John Kearney contended however there was no such need, highlighting that Nummy is “acutely aware of the full extent of the tragedy in this case”.
Highlighting that Nummy treated and loved his niece as “one of his own,” the barrister told the court “he is devastated by what happened and the consequences of what happened”.
The court heard that the 75-acre farm which had once had more than 50 head of cattle, is now barely running at all and there are just three cows left.
Mr Kearney said that before the accident, “farming blood flowed through the veins” of the family, including the defendant, Abbie and her cousin who is “wracked with guilt” but that once-flowing blood “is now stagnant – his heart is no longer in it”.
When Judge Irvine finished his sentencing remarks and told Nummy that he was “free to go,” the defendant was hugged and supported by his family who were in the public gallery.
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