The Liverpool ECHO has officially backed the campaign for a new Gabe's Law, which would legally enforce higher perimeter barriers and guards at multi-storey car parks to stop people falling to their deaths. The newspaper says the time has come for the law to change after families, survivors and MPs joined to demand rule changes for new and existing car parks.
The ECHO has been working for some years with Johnny Santer, whose 15-year-old son Gabriel died after falling from a multi-storey car park in Liverpool city centre in 2020. Johnny and his family believe Gabe's death and those of many others in the city, the wider region and around the country could have been prevented if safety measures at publicly accessible multi-storey car parks were improved.
Recent deaths at Liverpool car park
Natasha Perry's son Josh was 21 when he fell to his death from a multi-storey car park in Liverpool in March. Just weeks after Josh's death, 27-year-old Tom Minks fell from the same car park. He survived, but with life-changing injuries that require expert care. Both of these falls followed a woman who died at the same facility, run by ParkBee, back in 2023.
Earlier this month, a man in his 30s fell to his death, also from the same car park, meaning there have been three deaths and one near-death fall from that one structure in the city alone. When extrapolated across the country, the ECHO states that too many people are dying in this way and that new measures are required to change this.
What Gabe's Law would do
Gabe's Law, known officially as the Multi-Storey Car Parks (Safety) Bill, is proposed legislation that would, if enacted, raise the legal minimum height of perimeter guarding and barriers from 1.1m to 2.7m. The campaign wants this to apply to newly built multi-storey car parks and to enforce the retrofitting of existing car parks. The new law would also mandate continuous 24-hour on-site staffing or security at multi-storey car parks to help intervene and protect potentially vulnerable individuals.
The campaign is being led in Parliament by Liverpool Garston MP Maria Eagle. She originally introduced the Bill in 2023, and it was re-introduced in 2025 by Bootle MP Peter Dowd, but ran out of Parliamentary time. Ms Eagle re-introduced the Bill earlier this year.
Government call for evidence
In a step forward for the campaign, the government has launched a call for evidence on an area of existing building regulations covering protection from falling, collision and impact in relation to Gabe's Law. While this move has been welcomed by families and campaigners, any changes to this element of building regulations would only apply to newly-built car park structures, and not existing ones. Gabe's Law seeks to make the changes in all existing multi-storey car parks.
Since the death of his first-born child in 2020 in a fall from a Q-Park, Johnny Santer has dedicated his life to the Gabe's Law campaign. Speaking as the ECHO officially joins his campaign, he said: "I'm absolutely delighted that the ECHO has got on board with us now as official supporters in joining the campaign. I'm hoping that with your network and reach we can get other organisations aligned with our campaign."
He added: "We've just had the call for evidence made public that Sir Keir Starmer promised back in 2025. And the idea moving forward is that those organisations can come together and write to the ministers and let them know why this is so important. Everything I do is for Gabe. It's all for Gabe. It's his love and his light."
Johnny said anyone that met Gabe always says the same thing about how empathetic he was, how much compassion he had and how he always put other people first. He said: "This is all about not letting other families have to go through what we've gone through and making sure that they're kept safe the way that we unfortunately were not."
He added: "I have absolutely no doubt that eventually we will have Gabe's Law in place. People who have campaigned on various things all tell me we just need to keep going and we will get there. Every social justice movement goes through the same knockbacks and refusals - but with everyone's help and support, we will get there."
Families speak out
Natasha Perry said that when she read about the most recent death at the ParkBee car park in Liverpool, it transported her immediately to the day she found out she had lost her son Josh. She told the ECHO: "It just like it felt like it was the same, it felt like it just happened all over again. I had to take the day off work after I saw that story and I honestly thought it was about Josh again. I thought oh my god, not another person. I know how that family feel. They will have had the same knock on the door that we had. I felt physically sick, as Josh's sister Eva said, it just takes you straight back to that moment."
Speaking about the Gabe's Law campaign, Natasha added: "I've said it over and over: it's an easy fix, and I can't believe that money is holding this back. They just need to make the rails higher. I think if this had happened to a family member of one of these car park companies, it would be changed straight away. How much revenue do these companies bring in? They could even charge 10p more per car and they could pay for these changes. But they won't, so we need to change the law."
Dale Minks' son Tom survived a catastrophic fall from a car park in Liverpool. While he suffered life-changing injuries, Dale says he is all too aware of how lucky he and his family are not to have lost Tom. He said: "We wake up every morning thanking God that we've got our son and that has kind of reoriented our lives. We also realise every morning that Natasha and Johnny and Gabe's mum Marie wake up with the exact opposite feeling. So that is very bittersweet."
He added: "We are delighted that Reach and the Liverpool Echo is doing this to bring awareness to this issue. Because each death and each fall that we see, the dots are being joined up and eventually that becomes a picture that is then staring you in the face of something that is preventable. So we hope that joining this campaign will bring this to a more rapid conclusion. These deaths are happening and they will continue to happen and we think Johnny Santer's initiative in memory of his dear son Gabe is momentous. We have to ask, how many more deaths will it take before something is done? We hope that government ministers will now turn their minds to doing what needs to be done."
Liverpool Garston MP Maria Eagle said: "I am pleased that the Liverpool Echo is taking up Gabe's Law as a campaign. We have seen too many people die by falling from car parks in Liverpool already and my Multi-Storey Car Parks (Safety) Bill, known as Gabe's Law, would help minimise further loss and would save lives. It would make changes to barrier fencing height retrospective, making it more difficult to fall from existing multi-storeys, and calls for 24-hour staffing of car parks to help deter death by jumping. This campaign if successful would be a fitting legacy for my constituent Gabriel Santer and for others who have lost their lives in this way. I welcome this campaign and strongly urge others to support it."
In response to questions about safety issues and the deaths linked to its Liverpool car park, a spokesperson for ParkBee told the ECHO: "We will continue to monitor developments in national guidance, including the potential enactment of Gabe's law, and engage constructively with stakeholders to ensure that our approach to suicide prevention remains aligned with current best practice. ParkBee has engaged constructively and cooperated fully with the relevant authorities in connection with such matters at the car park."
