Appeal over bouncy castle ruling

Sam Harris was left brain-damaged after being kicked on a bouncy castle

A couple found liable after a boy suffered brain damage on a bouncy castle have taken their case to appeal.

Sam Harris, now 13, of Spalding, Lincolnshire, suffered a broken skull when a 15-year-old boy kicked his head at a party in Strood, Kent, in 2005.

Timothy and Catherine Perry, from Rochester, want the High Court to reverse a decision that they had not provided enough supervision.

The three appeal judges reserved their ruling to a later date.

He [the judge] was wrong to find that uninterrupted supervision from a permanent look-out or a constant watch was necessary Graham Eklund QC

At the High Court in May, the couple were found liable for damages - estimated at more than £1 million - for Sam, who now needs round-the-clock care.

But at the appeal hearing on Tuesday, Graham Eklund QC, representing Mrs Perry, who was in charge of the party attraction, said "parents up and down the land" would not have behaved any differently.

He told the court the High Court judge applied the wrong test to the conduct of Mrs Perry, who was supervising children using the castle.

"He was wrong to find that uninterrupted supervision from a permanent look-out or a constant watch was necessary."

'Range of conduct'

Mr Eklund said the scope of the duty of care did not require Mrs Perry to keep the larger boy separate from other children on the castle, who also included one of her own.

The High Court was told the accident happened during the seconds that Mrs Perry had gone to help another child on another inflatable.

It set an unreasonably high standard to say that what happened was unacceptable and outside the range of conduct of a reasonably careful parent, Mr Eklund said.

"It is a well-known principle Mrs Perry's conduct had to be judged on what a reasonably careful parent would have done for her own child in the circumstances," he added.