Tour booking agents and managers of a New Zealand island where a volcanic eruption killed 22 people in 2019 have been ordered to pay nearly $NZ13 million ($A12.1 million) in fines and reparations.
The holding company of the island’s owners, a boat tour operator and three companies that operated helicopter tours were found guilty of safety breaches at a three-month trial last year.
White Island, the tip of an undersea volcano also known by its Maori name Whakaari, was a popular tourist destination before the eruption. There were 47 tourists and tour guides on the island when superheated steam erupted on December 9, 2019, killing some people instantly and leaving survivors with agonising burns.
‘There is no way to measure the emotional harm survivors and affected families have endured and will continue to endure,’ Judge Evangelos Thomas said during the sentencing in a Wellington court. ‘Reparation in a case like this can be no more than token recognition of that harm.’
‘No review of prevailing reparation levels conducted by any other court contemplates emotional harm of the scale and nature that is present in this case. Greater awards are appropriate.’
Previously, a three-month, judge-only trial against 13 groups had seen six plead guilty and six other having charges against them dismissed. The charges were brought by regulators and carried fines as a maximum penalty.
The final remaining defendant in the trial was Whakaari Management Ltd. which was found guilty on one charge in October last year.
At Friday’s sentencing hearing, Thomas was particularly scathing towards the shareholders of WML, the holding company for the island’s owners: Andrew, James and Peter Buttle, who he said had ‘appeared to have profited handsomely’ from tours to the island, despite the company claiming no assets or a bank account to hold funds.
‘This case, like many others, sadly reveals how simply corporate structures can be used to thwart meaningful responses to safety breaches,’ Judge Thomas said. ‘There may be no commercial basis for doing so, but many would argue there is an inescapable moral one.’
‘We wait to see what the Buttles will do. The world is watching.’
The specific reparation sums awarded to victims and the families of those who died was suppressed for publication by the court.
The last remaining defendant, New Zealand scientific agency GNS Science, the government agency that monitors volcanic activity, was fined for failing to have processes to share risk assessments with its contracted helicopter pilots.
No GNS staff were on the island at the time of the eruption and the agency was not ordered to make any reparations.
Australian victims in White Island tragedy: The dead and injured
24 Australians were among 47 tourists on New Zealand’s White Island when it erupted.
THE DEAD:
Julie Richards, 47, and her daughter Jessica, 20, from Brisbane.
Martin Hollander and his wife Barbara
Martin Berend Hollander, 48, from Sydney.
His two sons Berend, 16, and Matthew, 13, who attended Sydney’s Knox Grammar, both died in hospital after suffering serious injuries in the blast.
According to his Linkedin profile, Mr Hollander works at Transport for NSW as a freight initiatives manager.
He is also a director at a Singaporean investment management firm, Wipunen Incrementum Capital.
Mr Hollander and Mrs Hollander’s bodies were later recovered from the island.
Gavin Dallow, 53, and stepdaughter Zoe Hosking, 15, from Adelaide
Mr Dallow’s body was identified by police from the five bodies recovered from the island. Zoe was later formally identified as a victim.
Karla Mathews, 32, and Richard Elzer, 32, from Coffs Harbour, NSW
The couple were identified as those tourists still on the island and therefore presumed dead by their families.
Jason Griffiths, 33, Coffs Harbour, NSW
Jason Griffiths, 33, from Coffs Harbour, NSW, died from his injuries after being taken to hospital in critical condition.
He had been on a tour of the volcano with couple Karla Mathews, 32, and Richard Elzer, 32, who are now presumed dead, friends said.
Matthew (Year 8) and Berend Hollander (Year 10) from Sydney
Knox Grammar schoolboy brothers Matthew, 13, and Berend, 16, Hollander.
They died in two New Zealand hospitals after escaping the island with horrific burns.
Their father Martin and mother Barbara were confirmed dead.
Krystal Browitt, 21, from Melbourne, and her father Paul
Ms Browitt was on the Ovation of the Seas cruise for her 21st birthday with family.
Mr Browitt died on 13 January in hospital.
Their mother Marie escaped death by staying on the cruise liner.
Anthony Langford, 51, and his wife Kristine Langford, 45, from Sydney
Kristine Langford, 45, from Sydney, is also among those dead.
The couple’s 19-year-old son Jesse survived the volcano eruption, and is recovering in hospital with burns to 90 per cent of his body.
Mr Langford worked for Sydney Water.
Winona Langford, 17, Sydney
NZ Police said one of the bodies still missing on White Island belonged to 17-year-old Winona Langford from Sydney.
Winona’s mother and father have been confirmed dead.
Her body is either entombed on the deadly volcano island or is in the sea.
THE INJURED:
Stephanie Browitt
Stephanie Browitt suffered burns to 70 per cent of her body.
The 24-year-old from Melbourne had her fingers amputated and wears a full face mask to protect her healing skin.
Lisa Dallow, 49, from Adelaide
She was an induced coma in Hamilton Hospital, with 57 per cent of her body burnt.
Jesse Langford, 19, Sydney
Jesse Langford was the sole survivor of his family-of-four who visited the island while on an Ovation of the Seas cruise for his father’s birthday