Girl was visiting Norfolk beach with her mother when fatal injury took place, police say

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

A three-year-old girl who was killed when an inflatable trampoline collapsed on a beach had been visiting the area with her family, police said. Norfolk police said the child, who was named by relatives as Ava-May Littleboy, was fatally injured when the licensed inflatable burst.

The girl, from Suffolk, was with her mother on the beach at Gorleston at the time, they said.

Ava-May Littleboy. Photograph: Justgiving

Superintendent Roger Wiltshire said: “The witnesses report a loud bang before the incident but we don’t know at this stage what caused the trampoline to apparently burst, and that’s the purpose of the investigation that we will be undertaking over the next day or so.”

Tributes including teddy bears and bunches of flowers have been piling up against a metal perimeter fence around a cordoned-off area where the burst inflatable lay on the sand.

Her family said: “She was not your ordinary little girl, as anyone she met, she would leave a lasting impression on. Anyone that met her would not want to forget her.”

A joint investigation between police, the Health and Safety Executive and the local council is under way.

A Home Office postmortem examination is due to take place to determine the cause of her death.

Robert Halfon, the Conservative MP for Harlow, Essex – where seven-year-old Summer Grant was killed when a bouncy castle blew free from its moorings in 2016 – wants the government to consider a temporary ban on inflatables in public spaces.

He said he would be tabling a parliamentary motion on the issue after his request for an urgent question was refused.

Robert Halfon MP (@halfon4harlowMP) After two horrific tragedies, Government need to look at update of regulations and inspection regime and consider a temporary ban on bouncy castles in public areas until we can be sure that they are safe. https://t.co/pjXom7r5DT

Robert Halfon MP (@halfon4harlowMP) Disappointed not to have been granted an #UrgentQuestion on #bouncycastles today following the tragedy that occurred over the weekend, but I will be tabling a Commons motion about it.

Matt Biggs, who runs the Nottingham-based bouncy castle hire firm Big Bounce, said Halfon was adding to public confusion. “It is really infuriating when you see MPs make sweeping statements like that. It is absolutely tragic what’s happened to the little girl, but it wasn’t a bouncy castle – it was a sealed-air trampoline. A bouncy castle uses continuous airflow and the air escapes out of the seams, so it couldn’t explode. He’s absolutely got it wrong.”

Biggs added: “You always get a kneejerk reaction, but it’s important to get the facts straight first. It’s like calling for a ban on motorbikes when somebody’s had a crash on a pushbike.”

Halfon told Sky News: “I’m not a killjoy, but bouncy castles, and things that are similar to bouncy castles, clearly need to be banned in public areas temporarily until there has been an urgent review by the government and the relevant authorities.”

Biggs said the bouncy castle industry was still trying to recover from the fatal incident in Halfon’s constituency in 2016, which took place after a bouncy castle had not been properly secured in high winds.

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Married fairground workers William Thurston, 29, and Shelby Thurston, 26, were jailed for three years in June after they were found guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence and of a health and safety offence.

Biggs said: “I’m all for regulations for bouncy castles in public places, but calling for a ban after this incident, which wasn’t even a bouncy castle, is ignorant and endangering many people’s livelihoods. The industry is already regulated, with overview from the Health and Safety Executive.”

He added: “I’ve already had two customers ring me this morning concerned that the same thing could happen to them. I’ve had to explain that bouncy castles cannot explode like the one yesterday.”