21/03/2016
A crane hire company has been fined £750,000 and ordered to pay £100,000 in costs after admitting responsibility for the death of two men following a tragic accident ten years ago.
The crane driver and a bystander were killed when the 165ft crane collapsed in Battersea in 2006.
The crane had nearly twice the recommended tonnage of counterweights loaded onto it because the wrong instruction manual had been used when setting up the vehicle. This resulted in 100 percent increased tension on an imperative set of bolts.
A further health and safety breach occurred when the company did not carry out an investigation as to why four bolts on the crane failed two months earlier.
Charges against company director dropped
Following the admission of responsibility from the company, charges against the managing director, Douglas Genge, were dropped.
“Worst eight months of my life.”
In a 2007 interview, Mr Genge described the time after the accident as, “the worst eight months of my life”. He admitted that the company had been lax on some health and safety matters and that paperwork was not always completed properly after health and safety inspections had been completed.
At the time, Mr Genge stated that he had turned the company around with regards to health and safety by doubling the rate of external inspections of equipment to every six months and increasing internal inspections to every eight weeks.
Jury at Coroner’s Court found health and safety failings in 2012
In 2012 coroner Dr Shirley Radcliffe made a controversial decision when she refused to allow a jury the opportunity to deliver a verdict of unlawful killing against Falcon Crane Hire following the tragedy. She ruled that even though the company used the wrong manual when loading the counter-weights, it had used the correct procedure when it replaced the four bolts that had failed two months prior to the accident and so there was no gross breach of the duty of care owed.
The jury instead delivered a narrative verdict which was read out in court.
A Safer Crane Industry Following the Disaster
The Battersea accident led to the Strategic Plant Forum for Safety being set up which regulates and monitors the safety of cranes. There are now guidelines available when buying a crane, an exam for crane supervisors to pass, and all cranes have to be fully registered to allow for a proper history check to be conducted before purchase is made.
Fisher Scoggins Waters are a London based law firm who are experts in construction, manufacturing and engineering matters. If you have recently had a health and safety incident occur in your workplace, please phone us on 0207 993 6960.