Injury lawyers accused of capitalising on Alton Towers tragedy
A law firm has risked public anger by appearing to use the Alton Towers rollercoaster crash to generate new business.
Not long after two carriages crashed on the Smiler rollercoaster, resulting in four serious injuries, Broad Yorkshire Law tweeted:
"Been injured in a roller coaster crash?! We're experts in Personal Injury!!" The tweet then ended with the hashtags '#Smiler' and '#AltonTowers'
The tweet attracted fierce criticism from other users, who labelled it "inappropriate and wholly unacceptable", while others went so far as to call the law firm "scum".
@Broad_Yorkshire@altontowers The injured need support and well wishes not scum trying to make money out of them! #disgusting#smilercrash
— Charlotte Veryard (@CharlieVeryard) June 3, 2015
@_Injury_lawyer@roxannebarthram@Broad_Yorkshire inappropriate & wholly unacceptable -what were they thinking of 😱
— Cenric Clement-Evans (@newlawcenric) June 3, 2015
Broad Yorkshire soon deleted the tweet, replacing it with the following:
Please accept our sincere apologies for any offence caused, none was intended and our best wishes go out to those who were stranded.
— Broad Yorkshire Law (@Broad_Yorkshire) June 2, 2015
The personal injury specialists then issued a more detailed statement on its Facebook page, stating that it would "never try to profit in such a way from such a terrible accident".
Lois Bayliss, a solicitor at the firm, said the offending tweet had been sent by a junior member of staff, who has "of course been reprimanded".
Bayliss added: "He tells me that he was making a joke about people being stranded on a roller coaster and did not realise there had been a collision and that people were actually hurt at the time that he tweeted.
"He is devastated that he has caused offence to the victims and families of the crash and the public as a whole. He is also devastated that people have actually been injured. He has of course been reprimanded for the tweet."
