Firms Fined For Heathrow T5 Construction Death

Two construction companies were fined a total of £105,000 after “failed” equipment used at Heathrow’s Terminal Five project was involved in a Plymouth man falling fifty feet to his death.

Carpenter Matthew Gilbert, 27, suffered fatal multiple injuries on August 3, 2005, after a 6.5 tonne concrete slab he was standing on with Slough engineer’s assistant Parminder Singh, 24, collapsed.

SGB Services Ltd., of Harsco House, Regent Park, 299 Kingston Road, Leatherhead, Surrey, admitted two breaches of Health and Safety regulations at Isleworth Crown Court and were fined £30,000, plus £30,000 costs.

“They manufactured and supplied heavy-duty Threaded Shoring Adapters, (TSA’s) whose failure was one of the principle causes of the collapse,” said Mr. James Ageros, prosecuting.

The TSA’s were used to hold the massive slabs in place on the car park roof until concrete was poured in over reinforced steel to secure the structure.

Also prosecuted were Laing O’Rourke Infrastructure, of Paramount House, Maylands Avenue, Hemel Hempstead, who admitted one Health and Safety breach and were fined £75,000, plus £75,000 costs.

“The failures of Laing O’Rourke were causative in the death of Mr. Gilbert and the serious injuries suffered by Mr. Singh,” added Mr. Ageros.

Mr. Singh, 24, who spent nine weeks in hospital, received £270,000 compensation, after suffering serious injuries to his head, leg and back and claims to still suffer side effects four years later.

The court heard by supplying a batch of sub-standard TSA’s in 2003 SGB failed to ensure they were capable of carrying the maximum loads.

Laing O’Rourke failed to have the necessary quality control checks in place to ensure the TSA’s used could carry the heaviest loads and failed to remove sub-standard TSA’s when warned.

“This was a safety critical component and was likely to be used in safety critical circumstances,” explained Mr. Ageros.

Describing the incident as a “tragic accident” Judge Hazett Colgan said: “The TSA was downrated and should not have been used for a slab of that weight and had been marked in red paint to show this.

“SGB knew about the poor quality of some of them and they re-supplied downrated TSA’s to four sites around the country.”

As for Laing O’Rourke the Judge added: “They must have known some of them were defective.”

He gave Laing O’Rourke credit for resolving all civil claims, co-operating with the Health and Safety Executive and instigating new systems of training, control and risk assessment.

He accepted SGC supplied the four other sites in error and that if used correctly the downrated TSA’s were still perfectly adequate.

All such TSA’s have been scrapped and new models are now being used.