Costain found guilty over Parkway death

Mark Williams was crushed to death on July 20, 2011 as the telescopic handler, or telehandler, he was operating toppled over.
The 41-year-old from Nuneham Courtenay, Oxfordshire, was employed by contractors Attleys Roofing Ltd.
The principal contractor, responsible for safety on the site, was Costain Ltd.
Both firms denied four charges brought by the Health and Safety Executive. These included two counts of failure to conduct a suitable and sufficient risk assessment; one count of failure to ensure health and safety and welfare of an employee at work and one count of exposing others to a risk to health and safety.
However, a jury found Costain guilty of all four charges at Reading Crown Court this afternoon (Thursday).
They found Attleys Roofing Ltd not guilty on all charges.
Costain will be sentenced on April 23.
On Friday, Judge Angela Morris summed up the evidence presented during the four-week hearing.
She reminded jurors how, the day before he died, Mr Williams had warned colleagues that someone “was going to get killed”.
The court had also heard from Mr Williams’ partner Samantha Collins, who said that, on the eve of the tragedy, she had come across Mr Williams at home on the phone to his employers at Attleys Roofing Ltd.
She said he was agitated and had told them: “It still hasn’t been moved and it’s holding us up.”
Judge Morris said: “He told (Samantha) about a piece of machinery in their way and that no one appeared able to do anything about it.”
An expert witness for the prosecution, Michael Dix of the national construction industry training organisation CITB, described himself as a “telehandler anorak” and said he visited the site the day after the tragedy.
It was his opinion that “there was a risk of things falling” on site. that there were “various items in the way” of the telehandler and that the carriageway was too narrow for safety.
He also said that the risk assessment was flawed and that the telehandler used was inappropriate for safe operation under those circumstances.
He felt a different model or even a crane would have been safer, jurors heard.
The defendants called their own expert witness to counter Mr Dix’s testimony, the former head of health and safety for the Olympic Delivery Authority, Lawrence Waterman.
However, the judge reminded jurors that Mr Waterman only visited the site after construction was complete.
She said he gave evidence that the fact that the telehandler space was restricted did not necessarily mean that it was not safe or not suitable.
The hearing has been told that Parkway was a major project in Newbury, involving the demolition of existing buildings and the construction of a new shopping centre with a two-storey basement car park.
Developer Standard Life hired Costain to act as the principal contractor for the £100m project.
As the jury retired last Friday afternoon, Judge Morris told jurors to take whatever time they needed to try to reach a unanimous verdict.