Trespassing accidents involving children

Children are naturally curious, so when out playing and something catches their eye they usually want to take a closer look. When this happens there may be occasions when the child goes onto private land and unknowingly trespasses. For example, when out playing hide and seek with their friends they may see a hole in a fence and decide to climb through to hide. This hole may lead onto private property, but if they injure themselves whilst climbing through, or get hurt once they’ve climbed through the owner of the fence will be responsible. It is the responsibility of property owners to make sure nobody is injured on their land regardless of whether or not they should be there. The owner of the property should have repaired the hole in the fence, if he had done this the child would not have been attracted to it as a hiding place and therefore the accident wouldn’t have happened.

If property owners have anything on their land that could be an allurement to children they must ensure it cannot be accessed by them. Children will not be aware of potential dangers and will always want to take a closer look. Outdoor swimming pools are a good example of this. Any property that has an outdoor pool must ensure it cannot be accessed by the public. If a pool can be seen over a low fence or wall it is the type of thing kids would dare each other to jump in, an accident waiting to happen. Land owners who leave machinery such as tractors or quad bikes unattended with keys in may think its ok as the vehicles are on their property, but if a child was able to walk onto the land and injured them self on one of the vehicles the land owner would be responsible.

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