NSW: Can there be change as legacy for little India?

AAP General News (Australia)
08-27-2004
NSW: Can there be change as legacy for little India?

By Graeme Webber

MOSS VALE, NSW, Aug 27 AAP - A bedraggled soccer net hangs from a rusting portable
goal post on a country sports oval.

It's a backyard construction, dating back to an era when a handyman could knock up
a bit of sporting gear for his local club so the kids would have something to do on the
weekends.

A hooked steel peg which is supposed to anchor the goal frame to the ground lies nearby
in the grass.

There's no back beam for balance, the bottom supports are too short and one of them
is rocking around on uneven ground.

The old posts weigh 180kg and they're top-heavy - so unsteady that a police investigator
sent them crashing to the ground with one finger.

But for kids, the net seems like a good way to climb up so they can swing in the mouth
of the teetering goal posts like they would on a monkey bar.

It was a disaster waiting to happen, and happen it did last year, costing a three-year-old
girl her life.

But an even greater tragedy is that it's all happened before.

An inquest this week by NSW Deputy State Coroner Carl Milovanovich is looking into
the death of India Verity at Moss Vale in the NSW Southern Highlands on June 28 last year.

It was told that, four years earlier, another child, Denis Malbasa, was struck down
by goal posts as other youngsters clambered over them at Bonnyrigg in Sydney's south-west
in February 1999.

India was attending a soccer fun day with her parents and brother when a set of unsecured
portable posts crashed onto her.

Mother Caroline Verity unsuccessfully tried to shield India and was also hurt in the
fall. India suffered massive head injuries and died at Bowral Hospital less than one and
a half hours later.

Caroline and her husband William want a simple legacy for India: that no other child
should be killed or hurt by goal posts and that no parent has to share their anguish.

But in the aftermath of the Verity and Malbasa tragedies, two police officers who investigated
India's death have found more unsecured portable goal posts - as recently as last weekend.

It is almost incomprehensible that an unsecured goal frame was found just a few weeks
ago on the sports ground where India died.

Mr Milovanovich stressed this week that his inquiry was not one of blame nor was it
a place for civil or criminal retribution.

His mission was simply to find the factors which contributed to India's death and hopefully
formulate a plan to avert similar deaths.

So who made the goal frame? No one could say.

Who was responsible for moving them? No one in particular.

Who failed to peg them down just prior to June 28, and why were they placed on uneven
ground? Don't know.

Did Wingecarribee Shire Council or the Moss Vale Soccer Club own the posts? Hard to
say, since there was only a verbal agreement between the two organisations.

What seemed obvious throughout the hearing was a breakdown in communication and lines
of responsibility.

The NSW Department of Fair Trading, soccer governing bodies and the Local Government
Association have issued numerous warnings about dangerous goal posts since 1999.

So why weren't they enacted at the Moss Vale sports ground?

Detective Senior Constable Glenn Lillie, who headed the coronial brief, offered an explanation.

He said both the local council and soccer club had "taken little action to ensure that
the portable goal posts at Church Road follow the guidelines".

He said a new regime of goal post safety which arose from the Malbasa coronial inquiry
in 1999 was more than adequate.

But sadly, "this is a case of the guidelines not being followed", he told the inquiry.

The deaths should surely send shivers through any volunteer-driven community organisation,
because even good samaritans cannot escape scrutiny when things go wrong.

From the Sydney Olympics to the Little Athletics, volunteerism is the backbone of Australian
culture.

But what trust can people have in community groups if the office bearers and other
helpers are beyond reproach?

Lawyer Brad Hughes, acting for the Verity family, highlighted the inherent problem
with passing down corporate memory and skills when there was a high turnover of club officials.

Moss Vale Soccer Club vice president Ian Campbell - who organised the last soccer game
India attended - agreed.

"You are dealing with people who are trying their best but who haven't necessarily
got any admin skills," Mr Campbell said.

The inquest is due to finish tomorrow.

AAP gmw/nf/bes/sd

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