Wall collapse deaths directors guilty of safety breaches

Readers may recall this incident being reported on the National News in 2016 and it seems hard to believe that we have only, this week had a court verdict after more than 6 years of investigation.

In July 2016 Five workers were crushed to death at the Hawkeswood Metal Recycling site in Birmingham when a 4.6-metre high wall and 263 tonnes of metal fell on them.

The complexity of the case resulted in a seven-week trial at Birmingham crown court. Following the Court Hearing both Wayne Hawkeswood, director of Hawkeswood Metal Recycling, and Graham Woodhouse, director of Ensco 10101, were found guilty of four health and safety offences, while their respective companies were convicted of two offences each.

The five victims, were all agency workers of African heritage.

The trial examined the largest loss of life in a single incident at a recycling plant in the United Kingdom.

Relatives of the deceased were quoted as saying

“Our loved ones were hard-working and family-oriented people. They worked for little money in dangerous workplaces because they wanted to make a better life for their wives and children.

“This was a workplace where human life and workers’ rights were completely and repeatedly disregarded.”

Woodhouse was working as site operations manager when the wall toppled just after 8.30am on 7 July 2016, dropping 263 tonnes of scrap metal briquettes, equal to six fully loaded articulated lorries, on top of the workers.

Prosecutor Pascal Bates told the court: “Whatever straw finally broke this camel’s back is neither here nor there. The wall was decidedly unsafe and no one should have been working anywhere near it.”

The court concluded there was a “foreseeable risk” the wall would collapse “due to gross overloading” but recorded verdicts of accidental death for the victims.

Amy Kalay, principal inspector for the Health and Safety Executive, said the men “lost their lives in the most appalling of circumstances”.

“We have heard over the course of the trial that their deaths could have been prevented had the companies and individuals responsible for the site taken steps to manage health and safety risks,”

To further underline the complexity of the case the defendants will not be sentenced until the new year.