Dean I will agree that each location needs to be judged on its own particular set of circumstances and risks. Many have introduced other scenarios such as hillside paths, coastal areas, etc, these are not particularly relevant to this case. What is relevant are facts like - was the fall an obvious hazard which could easily have been avoided? Are the infirm and young children exposed to such a risk? Would it have been possible to erect discrete edge protection without spoiling the ambience?

Rather than straying off topic it appears that those of us who have mentioned other locations with a risk of serious or fatal injury through falls from height were dealing with the questions posed by dsb at the end of his original posting and thus putting the Warwick Castle cirucmstances in a wider context. Forum users who have looked through the VSCG document quoted at #28 and seen the photo of part of the York City Walls walkway may well have wondered about the following aspects regarding sections which have open edges above significant vertical drops: Have there been any incidents over the years involving such edges? If so, did any of them result in death or significant injury? Furthermore, did any of them lead to any prosecution of and/or claim against the owner of the Walls (most likely the city council)? Now for the crux question: If there have been no prosecutions or claims to date, would the situation change drastically if a serious or fatal injury were to occur through a fall from an unprotected edge in the future? This is what seems to have happened regarding the low parapets of the bridge at Warwick Castle which reportedly had over 20 million visitors without any incidents during the years from 1978 until 2007 when the fatal fall occurred. Also, does anyone know the views of any primary and secondary schools which take pupil groups to York? Do they avoid the Walls walk altogether, or just the sections which have unprotected drops - or do they do the whole walk and, importantly, ensure that 1) pupils are suitably briefed beforehand and 2) closely supervised along the sections with open drops? I’d better add that the above points are not intended as criticism or otherwise of the organisation and its staff with responsibility for the York Walls. It’s just that the Walls are very well known and visited by many people. Other towns and cities with historic accessible walls might also have similar sections with little or nothing to prevent people falling from them.