A film production company has admitted health and safety breaches over an accident on the set of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” in which Harrison Ford broke his leg.
Advertisement
Ford, reprising his role as Han Solo, was walking through the spaceship Millennium Falcon when a hydraulically operated door knocked him over and pinned him to the floor. He was airlifted to a hospital for surgery.
Prosecutor Andrew Marshall told Milton Keynes Magistrates’ Court that Ford had walked through the door with another actor before pressing a button.
Disney subsidiary, Foodles Production UK Ltd, has today plead guilty to two counts of Contravening a Health and Safety Regulation, following a 2014 incident at Pinewood Studios.
Stay on topic – This helps keep the thread focused on the discussion at hand.
The company will be sentenced at Aylesbury Crown Court over the breaches, expected to happen on August 22. “The fact that it didn’t was because an emergency stop was activated”.
“In the original film, the door…would have been closed with a pulley and a stagehand just closing it”, Ford said.
The other two charges of an employed or self-employed person failing to ensue the safety of a person other than an employee, were both withdrawn.
A spokeswoman for Foodles said they had “provided full co-operation throughout HSE’s investigation”.
A rep for the government’s Health and Safety Executive said, “The British film industry has a world-renowned reputation for making exceptional films”.
Advertisement
Its director, Rian Johnson, revealed last week that its style has been influenced by old-fashioned war films.
