DL20 Trading Pty Ltd, trading as Wings Diving Adventures, of Airlie Beach, was charged costs on top of the Aus $160,000 fine at the hearing at Proserpine Magistrates Court in Queensland.
Also read: Company fined £380k for endangering divers
But no conviction was recorded against the company, on the grounds that it had made an early guilty plea, cooperated fully during the investigation and had no previous convictions. It was said to have stopped all scuba-diving activities since the incident and made a sincere apology.
The Essex coroner had concluded that there were “various failings in the way in which the diving activities were carried out”.
Farrell, a 23-year-old recent graduate, was taking part in an introductory open-water dive with Wings Diving Adventures from a boat in Blue Pearl Bay, Hayman Island. She panicked after losing contact with her friend and their instructor, and was seen briefly at the surface by a boat-crew before drowning in deep water.
A Queensland police report presented at the inquest had stated that the separation could have been a contributory factor, while another from Queensland’s Office of Industrial Relations stated that the new divers should have been competency-tested and taught about buoyancy control in both deep and shallow water.
The charges were brought following an investigation carried out by Workplace Health & Safety Queensland.
