'Before you jump in your van, think of Harry' - Sussex schoolboy's death inspires police operation around load security
Three years after an 11-year-old boy was killed by an unsecured scaffold plank in East Sussex, his mother has joined forces with the police to explain, educate and enforce legislation around load security.
On Friday (September 5), Sussex Police were on hand to engage with commercial vehicle users just off the A23 at Handcross.
Operation Rule follows the tragic death of 11-year-old Harry Dennis, who was killed by an unsecured scaffold plank which fell from a van in Hooe in 2022.
Speaking to Sussex World, Harry’s mother Maria Dennis said: “Harry was a whirlwind, he was non-stop. The only time he was stopped was when he was asleep.
“He'd do everything at 100 miles an hour, he couldn't even sit and watch the telly, he'd be up and about.
“He loved his sport, he loved his BMX. When he was at school he'd take part in the athletics, he would take part in any sport.
"He was in a netball tournament. He loved it and he had so many different friends. From football he met so many people and he loved to make people laugh.”
Mrs Dennis said her aim was to tell drivers about what happened to Harry to ‘educate them and to prevent it happening again to somebody else’.
She added: “People don't always think about their consequences. They say: ‘I've been driving for 30 years, I know what I'm doing. This is how I've always loaded my van, nothing's happened yet. I'm busy, I don't have time to tell you guys actually’.
"Harry is proof that this does happen. Unsecured loads do come off the back of vehicles. It's happened to us, it's happened to Harry.
"Do you want to be held responsible for the death of a child or anybody? You've got to live with that on your conscience for the rest of your life.
“I'm talking to the drivers and the most common answer is, ‘oh I'm busy. My manager's always rushing me out the yard, or I've got to get to the job, I've got to do this’.
"For the sake of a couple of extra minutes, check your load, double check it, secure it down, cover it with a net.
"It takes a couple of minutes, and you know 100 per cent that load is not going anywhere. You're keeping yourself safe, you're keeping everyone safe.”
Mrs Dennis said she hopes those who were stopped on Friday will ‘go back and tell the people they work with’ and their friends.
"Even if they're having a moan that it was an inconvenience, they're getting the story across that way,” she said.
"So just get everyone talking, talking about what happened to Harry, what happened to us, and just moving forward.
“Do it for Harry, my boy, my shining star, my little live wire. He can't live the rest of his life. He can't do all the things we've done, going out, living his best life, playing football, all those things.
"That's been taken away from him. So before you jump in your van, or your truck, check, go round that vehicle, think of Harry, and make sure everything's as secure as it can be.”
Barry Freeman, of the Sussex Police Commercial Vehicle Unit, reinforced the message that people ‘need to take that extra time to secure their load’.
He added: “Just take that extra five minutes.
"We've had an increase of at least five fatalities with load security in the last five years. And the most poignant one was the death of 11-year-old Harry Dennis.
"Maria, his mum, has approached us and said, ‘I want to get on board with helping you to try and prevent extra death’. So that's driven us to focus our efforts around load security.
"She's a phenomenal lady. To do this after losing her son is just unbelievable for me, that she can put that into a separate box and do it, and come out and talk to these drivers. But it gives the message from another perspective.
"So rather than me standing here in a uniform and saying, ‘you should do it this way or you should do it that way’, they can see the other side of it.
"Last year we did this and we got a load of statistics. We had 20 forces last year get on board and we managed to get a picture nationally as to what areas we needed to focus on.
"Today is a checkpoint to see how we have made a difference and what we need to do moving forward.”
PC Freeman said fatalities from insecure loads result from a ‘set of circumstances that have gone wrong’.
He added: “So it might just be that one strap, as in Harry's case, if that driver had put one strap on that load, Harry would still be here.
"A strap is £10, if that. So at the end of the day, we're asking them just to put that one strap on, spend that extra two, three minutes doing their load security before they drive off.”