Tree Adventures' courses take participants on high-level wires strung through the treetops at Woodhill Forest. Photo / Greg Bowker
Tree Adventures' courses take participants on high-level wires strung through the treetops at Woodhill Forest. Photo / Greg Bowker
Adventure company faces $250,000 fine
A tree-climbing adventure company faces a fine of up to $250,000 after a man plunged 14m to his death.
The company has admitted that it failed to prevent Cliff Brabet from falling when he was on a team-building exercise at a forest park course.
Brabet's widow, Liz, said the family were pleased the company had pleaded guilty, but remained deeply angry.
"How does a place that is so open to the public slip under the radar and not get inspected? If an inspector did get round, they could have stopped this.
"It's about the way they were telling us to use the equipment."
She said it was fair to expect to come out alive after going to an adventure park.
Cliff Brabet
Tree Adventures pleaded guilty last month in the Waitakere District Court to a charge laid under the Health and Safety in Employment Act after the Titirangi man fell when a wire attaching him to the treetop course became disconnected.
The 57-year-old IT and computer network administrator plunged from a platform at the second-highest point of the Woodhill Forest tree course in March, and died at the scene.
He was taking part in a work team-building exercise. Scores of people, including his wife, were on the popular outdoor attraction when the fatal accident happened.
A Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment spokesman said the charge was laid under section 16 of the act, which specified that people in control of places of work must take all practicable steps to ensure people are kept safe.
Breaches carry a maximum penalty of $250,000.
The West Auckland company is to be sentenced on February 14.
After the accident, the elevated tree course was closed while two separate investigations were carried out.
Safety officials also removed the equipment Brabet had been using.
Police spokeswoman Beth Bates said a coroner's inquest into the death was on hold until the court case was finished.
But father Reg Brabet said he still could not understand how his son met such an untimely death.
"He was a very clever man," Reg Brabet told the Herald on Sunday. "He's not what you'd call absent-minded. He was right on the ball with everything."
Reg Brabet said there were many unanswered questions about the fatal fall.
