A COUNCIL and an arts promotions company were both guilty of "serious fault" over the Dreamspace disaster which left two people dead and dozens injured, a judge has ruled this morning.

High Court judge Mr Justice Foskett said Chester-le-Street District Council and Liverpool-based event organiser, Brouhaha International Ltd, were each guilty of serious failings leading up to the July 2006 disaster.

He ruled the council, which has since been abolished and its liabilities taken over by Durham County Council, should pay 45 per cent - and Brouhaha 55 per cent - of the millions of pounds in damages due or already paid to the injured and bereaved, almost all of whom have already settled their compensation claims.

The judge said both the council and Brouhaha were at serious fault in failing to recognise the inadequacy of the risk assessment carried out by Maurice Agis, the artist behind the installation who died in 2009.

They had also both failed to ensure that the art installation was adequately anchored to the ground and, although Brouhaha was a small non-profit-making charity, it had a duty to make sure that members of the public invited into Dreamspace were kept safe.

Although there was "nothing to choose between them" in terms of the causes of the tragedy, the judge said Brouhaha had "acquired knowledge" during an earlier exhibition in Liverpool that Dreamspace was "susceptible to instability when conditions were windy".

While the council should have realised the potential risk if it had looked into Maurice Agis' risk assessment more carefully, the judge said Brouhaha had done nothing to alert Chester-le-Street to what happened in Liverpool.

Had Chester-le-Street been informed of the stability concerns, "it is difficult to believe that the council...would not, at the very least, have insisted on considerably more anchorage" when Dreamspace moved to the North-East.

The judge observed: "It is, of course, the case that had Maurice Agis been an effective party to the present proceedings, he would almost certainly have been found responsible to the largest extent of any of the three parties responsible for what happened.".

Mother-of-two Claire Furmedge, 38, of Chester-le-Street, and grandmother Elizabeth Collings, 68, of Dalton-le-Dale, Seaham, both County Durham, died when the walk-in inflatable attraction broke its moorings and soared into the air while on display in Chester-le-Street.

Maurice Agis, was cleared of manslaughter after a month-long trial, but was convicted of, a breach of public safety and was initially fined £10,000, later reduced to £2,500 on appeal.

Both Chester-le-Street District Council Brouhaha International run by Mr Agis' son Giles - were both fined for health and safety breaches.