Boy, 6, is killed by falling headstone
Sunday, 9 July 2000
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A six-year-old boy was crushed to death by a falling gravestone as he played with friends in a cemetery. Ruben Powell was playing at the Grove Road Cemetery in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, when the gravestone fell on him.
A six-year-old boy was crushed to death by a falling gravestone as he played with friends in a cemetery. Ruben Powell was playing at the Grove Road Cemetery in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, when the gravestone fell on him.
Police were called to the accident on Friday evening but the boy was pronounced dead at the scene. A spokesman for North Yorkshire police said it was unclear how the tragedy happened.
"Harrogate Police received reports that a gravestone had fallen on a child in the Grove Road cemetery," said a spokesman. "Officers attended the scene but the child, a six-year-old local boy, was pronounced dead." Police are appealing for witnesses to contact them.
The accident comes amid growing concern about the condition of many of Britain's cemeteries and gravestones. An emergency audit of burial grounds is being carried out after the Association of Burial Authorities warned that "15 million accidents" are waiting to happen. The association calculates that up to 20 per cent of tombstones are in danger of collapse.
While huge Victorian memorials pose a risk to the public, experts also believe that many modern tombstones, also known as lawn memorials, are inherently unstable.
Traditionally, gravestones were sunk so that a third of the entire height of the stone was below ground. Soil erosion means that a large number of huge Victorian tombstones are near collapse while modern memorials tend to be balanced on plinths laid at turf level, which makes them unstable as well.
