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FURTHER DETAILS OF DEATHS
Douglas, died when he fell from an internal crane ladder 150 feet to the ground. Health and Safety Executive (HSE) inspectors called to the scene after the death found 15 defects including bent rungs, cracks in the welding and nylon rope used to secure a rung. Costain had employed an independent safety inspector to inspect the ladder who found eight defects but said that the ladder was fit to use. Mr Banafik, from Allianz Cornhill Engineering said, 'A number of rungs were bent and there were defects. However, none of these caused problems with regard to climbing. The crane was fit to climb and it was not a hazard if you placed your foot in the right spot.' The inquest took place at the City of London Coroner's Court on 11 February 2002. A 'Misadventure' verdict was returned. The foreman
told the hearing, 'Mr Whiting fell from a great height from a ladder known
to have multiple defects.' After the hearing UK Construction Safety Campaigner Tony O'Brien said the area where Douglas died was known infamously as 'murder mile', 14 people having died in previous 12 months. 'There is
evidence pointing to defects in the ladder but no culpability is placed
on Costain or the subsidiary, Westminster Plant Company. Laws are being
broken and people are dying - it is just unacceptable.'
Frederick
died when a car park barrier hit the cleaning vehicle he was driving for
the local council. Stephen Bonner
Stephen Bonner died after falling 15 feet from a roof on to concrete
while working at the Old Moat House in Abbey Road, in Barking. He was
working for the construction company Mead Contractors Ltd of Wood Green
in the demolition of the building. He died seven days later in the Royal
London Hospital from the serious head injuries he sustained in the fall. Coroner Dr Elizabeth Stern said she would be forwarding the case to the Crown Prosecution Service. Adedoyin Kassim
Adedoyin - known as 'Larry' to his friends - died when he was struck by two trains at Purley Station, He was employed by Primat Recruitment Ltd to carry out contract safety work for Amec Rail Ltd. He was standing between two tracks, acting as a lookout for a team of railway workers when a glancing blow from a London-Bound Connex service knocked him into the Gatwick Express. Rigorous testing was being carried out as rail operators around the country desperately checked for signs of 'cracks' on the line in the wake of the Hatfield tragedy. An inquest took place on 24 June 2002 at London South Coroner's Court. The jury returned a narrative verdict. Amec and two of its offshoots were prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) at Croydon Magistrates Court on 29 October 2003 for exposing their staff to safety risks and fined a total of £42,000 . Amec had pleaded guilty to the health and safety offences. It emerged that Larry and some of his colleagues had been working for 46 consecutive days. The rail industry regulations state that no employee should work for more than 13 days before having a day off. Dr Debbie Lucas, a psychologist for the HSE, said in her report, 'It is probable that Mr Kassim was suffering from fatigue at the time of the accident. It would have taken him two or three seconds longer to react.' Stephen Thomas prosecuting for the HSE told the court, 'If proper systems had been in place and there had been proper communication with employees, none of them would have worked these long hours and faced the possibility of fatigue. Serious injury and even death can result from fatigue.' In June 2006 Adedoyin's widow Sade having sought damages from Primat Recruitment Ltd, Amec Rail Ltd and Network Rail Plc at the High Court in London received £160,000 compensation. Had the case gone to trial, Sade's lawyers would have alleged negligence by his superiors in imposing too heavy a burden of work on her husband. All three companies denied liability, maintaining they were 'not responsible for the decision made by Mr Kassim to cross when he did'. Mr Justice Wilkie approved the £160,000 settlement, which was agreed without admission of liability.
Michael Bellinger
Michael,
a dispatch clerk, was crushed to death between a baker's lorry and the
wall of a loading bay at British Bakeries Ltd at Barnehurst in Bexley
Heath An inquest
at London South Coroner's Court on 24 April 2002 returned a verdict of
'Accidental Death'. Cormack Nordon
Cormack, an electrical fitter from Maidenhead, was director of Anord Control Systems (UK) Ltd. He was crushed to death when an electrical transformer box fell from a crane onto him at a multistory office development at Canada Square in Canary Wharf. At the time Cormack was directing the crane. The principal contractors were Canary Wharf Contractors Ltd. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) said
Cormack was decapitated by the falling box. It launched an investigation
with help from the Metropolitan Police. The HSE said that this had been
the fifth fatal accident at Canary Wharf in 2001, following the deaths
of a a diver and three men who were killed by a falling crane. Zachariah Conteh
Zachariah died after half a ton of boiling soup exploded at the New Covent Garden Food Company (which is owned by Daniel Chilled Foods Ltd) when he tried to open the lid of the vat of soup to add some further ingredients. The safety mechanism that should have prevented the lid from being opened was not working. Colleague Abdullah Saleh was also hit by the blast and spent three weeks in hospital. An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) showed the soup had sprayed 30 feet into the air when the vat was opened. Engineering expert Dr Marc Loyez inspected the vat and concluded the top must have been opened by Zachariah. He said, 'The security system relied on a pressure transducer to tell it what the pressure in the vessel was. I found this had failed and did not work. It is possible Mr Conteh could have opened the lid before the proper time as a result of carelessness or workplace bravado.' He added, 'If the system had been working properly he would not have been able to open the lid. There should have been an audio alarm and a complete shutdown.' HSE expert Anthony Lees queried how Zachariah could have opened the vat under such high pressure. He said, 'The steam, the noise and the difficulty would have prompted anyone trying to open it to desist.' Mrs Conteh said after the hearing, 'This was the most appropriate verdict. We are now planning to sue the company.'
Four year old Yasmin died when a two story scaffold around a block of flats in Bromley collapsed. The premises were owned by Broomleigh Housing Association who contracted Tone Scaffolding to put up some scaffolding. The scaffolding was not cornered off and children played around it. A pulley rope was pulled by one of the children which brought the scaffolding down. There was nothing at the top of the scaffolding to attach it to the building. Representatives from the Crown Prosecution Service, the Metropolitan Police serious crimes group and the Health and Safety Executive met to decide on whether to issue a corporate manslaughter charge against the scaffolding contractor. In June 2007 Tone Scaffolding and scaffolder Stephen Armstrong both pleaded guilty to contravening health and safety regulations. Sentencing them at Croydon Crown Court, Judge Simon Pratt said, 'Nothing I can do now or say can bring Yasmin back. Let no one think that any kind of price is being put on a child's life, this case goes no further than the breach of health and safety regulations.' Tone Scaffolding Services were fined £35,000 for contravening section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 (the HSW Act), with costs of £20,000. Armstrong was fined £5,000 for contravening section 7 of the HSW Act, with costs of £7,500.
Anthony,
a steel erector, died when he fell from a platform at Dairycrest in Dagenham
where he was installing a cold storage system.
Mr Bain,
the director of R
Bain Scaffolding supervised
the first day of work on site.
Zafoora, a member of the public, died when she was walking between roadwork
barriers along the A12. A lorry delivering bricks to a construction site
hit her as it started and reversed a few metres. Zafoora attempted to cross the busy Eastern Avenue (A12) at Gants Hill, north-east London, near an out of use pedestrian crossing. She walked into the works area where a lorry operated by Instalcom, the project subcontractor, was parked. As she waited to cross the road, the lorry was started and slowly reversed a few metres. The driver did not see Zafoora behind the lorry and she was run-over. HSE inspector, Alec Ferguson, who investigated the incident, said 'Mrs Begum's death could have been avoided. Where drivers of vehicles have a restricted field of view, and particularly when reversing, employers must take effective measures to ensure that persons are not at risk of injury.' At the time of the incident McNicholas, the principal contractor for the repavement project, had taken a pedestrian light controlled crossing out of action as it was in the middle of the area being repaved. The works area itself was closed off to the public with pedestrian barriers. The project client had stipulated that no vehicle should reverse unless another person guided it back. When the incident happened, nobody assisted the driver to ensure it was safe to reverse. Had they done so the incident could have been avoided. McNicholas Plc and Instalcom Limited each pleaded guilty to a breach of Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act (HSWA) 1974. McNicholas Plc was fined £25,000 and ordered to pay costs of £12,700 to HSE, whilst Instalcom Limited was fined £12,500 and ordered to pay £10,000 costs to HSE.
James fell 12 metres to his death in Oxford Street when he fell from a six inch ledge when he was trying to reach a vertical banner from a building. He was not wearing a helmet or safety harness. An inquest at Inner West London Coroner's Court on 13th June 2002 returned a verdict of 'Accidental Death'. A prosecution
took place subsequent to this death. Trident Scaffolding and Cradle company pleaded
guilty at City of London Magistrates Court and were fined on 28 January
2003 a total of £17,500 for breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act (failing to ensure the safety of employees) plus costs of £2,706.
James died when he fell off a roof on a house in Springfield Road SE19 where he was fixing a window. An inquest
at Inner London West Coroner's Court took place on 27 November 2001 and
returned an 'Accidental Death' verdict Esfandiar Sabzabad
Esfandiar died at the premises of his own electroplating firm as a result
of exposure to cyanide
Ralph, who
was directly employed by Balfour Beatty Rail Maintenance, was hit by a
train while working at West Crossing just outside Waterloo Station. The following article in the International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters gives more details of the circumstances of the case and the findings of Railtrack's inquiry: 'Hit by a commuter train travelling at speed the worker (Mr Ralph Vilven) died. Railtrack Southern’s Formal Inquiry concluded that the train driver’s failure to slow down (due to his failure to understand his routing) and consequent high speed of the commuter train led the maintenance worker to conclude that it would progress along the Up Windsor line (a fast approach into Waterloo). In fact the train had been routed off that line via a slow-speed (15 mph) turnout. The train traversed the turnout at some 40 mph, killing the worker. Vilven’s conclusion that the train would enter Waterloo on the Up Windsor line was probably informed by his “mental model” of the Waterloo throat (he had worked on the dense and complex Clapham/Waterloo track system for over thirty years). The Formal Inquiry concluded the first 'underlying cause' of the fatality to be, 'The failure of the driver ... to observe correctly the theatre route indicator ... and accordingly to not reduce speed ... ” and the second to be “A failure on the part of [the worker] to recognize which route [the train] was taking ... which in part was almost certainly influenced by the approach speed of the train' (Railtrack Southern 2002, p. 38). Fundamentally the track worker was not negligent. Rather he was 'trapped' by circumstance and the
Nathan, an industrial window cleaner from Grays, Essex, fell from a fourth floor ledge on the 3 December 2001 while cleaning windows at Curtin Street in London EC2. He died 9 days later on the 12 December. An inquest at London Inner North Coroners Court took place on 12 June 2003 and returned a verdict of 'Accidental Death'. Adam Kirpsza
Adam, a Polish self-employed
builder, was killed after falling 2 metres from scaffolding on a house where he
was working. There were no eyewitnesses. The incident took place on 10
December. Adam died on 14 December in the National Hospital. Adam had been subcontracted by a friend to work on a £20,000 renovation job on a Victorian-style house in Brixton, for interior decorator Franz Burrows. Health and Safety Executive (HSE) inspectors were unable to carry out a proper investigation at the site because it had 'dramatically changed' by the time they arrived, and those on site also spoke very little English. Before his fall on 10 December 2001, Kirpsza was hammering broken and cracked bricks and then replacing them around a pipe. HSE inspector Tony Hetherington said it was not clear how Adam fell. 'When I investigated there were minor problems with the scaffolding but no serious breaches.' It is believed Adam may have slipped while coming down from his work area. PC John Bouchard said, 'I was told bricks had fallen on him and then he fell, but I didn't see any bricks at the scene and there were no witnesses.' The pathologist said the cause of death was head injuries.
Joseph Caruana
Joseph was unloading shingle at the RMC Readymix Ltd depot in Tower Hamlets. He reversed the articulated lorry up a concrete ramp into the unloading bay and activated the tipping mechanism. He engaged the tractor handbrake but not the trailer parking brake, and as he failed to release the tailgate of the trailer the shingle load built up at the rear of it. The weight caused the vehicle to skid down the ramp. When Joseph noticed this he ran and jumped into the cab of his vehicle, but he did not have time to shut the door. The vehicle jack-knifed, throwing him from the cab and under the advancing wheels of the trailer and Joseph died of multiple injuries at the scene. An inquest was held at the London Inner North Coroner's Court on 5 November 2003. A verdict of 'Accidental Death' was returned. In March 2009 John Peter Wootten, formerly trading as AEP Aggregates, was fined £4,000 and costs of £750 after pleading guilty to breaching Sections 3(1)(a) and 10(1) of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999. Charles Linfoot, Health and Safety Executive (HSE) Inspector said, 'Hauliers need to make sure they have safe systems of work, which include risk assessments adequate training and supervision of all workers. These actions are simple and could have saved the life of Mr Caruana. It is appalling that Mr Wootten ignored basic safety precautions and it is completely unacceptable that a man was killed in these circumstances. This prosecution shows that we are determined to tackle this issue head on and will continue to take enforcement action against companies and individuals who breach safety precautions.'
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