€35,000 award for injuries suffered in graveyard

A boy who was almost four years of age suffered two broken legs when a book-shaped headstone fell on top of him during a family visit to a graveyard and yesterday Cork City Council was found to be liable.

Mr Justice Kevin Cross said the local authority had been warned of the risk of such headstones 12 years earlier and had not acted on the advice.

The accident happened in 2012 at St Michael’s cemetery in Blackrock, and Eoin Morrison, who brought the case through his father, Richard Morrison of Ardmore Estate, Passage West, Co Cork, was awarded €35,000, the money to be lodged in court until the plaintiff, who is now eight, reaches the age of 18.