Kaden Reddick: Topshop and Arcadia Group fined £1m over boy's death

Topshop and its former owners have been fined a total of £1m for health and safety breaches after a 10-year-old boy was killed when a queue barrier fell on him.

Kaden Reddick died at the Reading store during a family shopping trip in 2017.

Arcadia Group and Topshop/Topman were found guilty in March of failing to discharge a health and safety duty.

Kaden's mother Lisa Mallett told the BBC there was no amount of money that "can bring back my son".

Reading Crown Court heard that it "should have been obvious" the barrier was a risk to customers.

It weighed about 110kg (243lb) - about 17 stone in imperial measurements - and was secured into the concrete floor by narrow screws.

It had been fitted in March 2014 during a major store revamp by company Stoneforce. That admitted a health and safety breach before the trial.

The screws used were more suited to fixing a picture to a wall and were "always inadequate", prosecutors told the court.

Kaden had been visiting the shop with his mother, grandmother and siblings after they went to the cinema on 13 February 2017.

His mother Lisa Mallett said Topshop had been "more concerned that [the barriers] looked aesthetically pleasing, not whether they were safe for their customers".

Arcadia Group, the former owner of Topshop, was fined £450,000 in 2019 after a girl was seriously injured at Topshop in Glasgow's Silverburn shopping centre after a barrier toppled onto her, six days before Kaden was fatally injured.

Emergency messages were sent to stores across the country after that incident but Judge Heather Norton KC said there was "no coherent strategy" to coordinate that effort.

The court heard all three companies convicted have since been liquidated but Arcadia Group and Topshop/Topman have assets and unsecured creditors.

Arcadia Group was fined £650,000 and Topshop/Topman £350,000. Each will pay £530,000 in costs.

Stoneforce was fined a nominal fee of £1,000.

Katie Heath, acting principal environmental health officer for the food and safety team at Reading Borough Council, said:"We hope that this case resonates across the retail industry and the circumstances that resulted in Kaden's death aren't repeated elsewhere.

"It was extremely important that we took this case forward. It was complex, challenging and resource intensive but we felt it was necessary to take it as far as we possibly could."

Realm Projects, which designed the barrier, was found not guilty of failing to discharge a health and safety duty in March.

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