OT Maintainance man gets 4 years for manslaughter

[The Medway Handyman]

This throws up a few questions.

The panel had been damaged for about 14 days. Why did no one report it? It was "a place where people frequently went to smoke" after all.

And why didn't he notice it?

I have a few regular jobs & part of my remit (from the client) is to walk the site & look for stuff that needs doing.

As the judge says, why didn't he board the gap up? Or close down the whole area? Or even cover the gap with warning tape?

And the greatest tragedy is that the parents didn't notice it. They must be going through hell.

[Cursitor Doom]

Cor blimey wot a plonker!

[damduck-egg]

Depends where he ends up, may get some National Front or English Defence league types to protect him as his actions caused the death of the child of a Muslim immigrant .

G.Harman

[bert]

Pedestrians always have right of way though sometimes it's prudent not to claim it.

[Harry Bloomfield]

I feel the company which employed had some responsibility in this - you cannot expect to cut the hours so severally and still expect work to be done as before. Being able to do work effectively and safely, relies upon having enough working time available to do that. Reduce hours down from what already sounded like it needed a full working week and something has to suffer/ corners have to be cut.

The judge made no mention of him falsely claiming the cost of the glass at all.

I now have a great deal of sympathy for this guy and his situation, obviously the judge also had sympathy too, hence the short sentence.

[Harry Bloomfield]

on 16/02/2014, The Medway Handyman supposed :

Perhaps he had originally had time to walk around and inspect, they cut his working hours down massively, which likely meant he no longer had time to cope.

It sounds as if he borrowed a panel from what might have been a less dangerous/ less used place. The panel he had claimed for didn't fit, so had not falsely claimed for it after all - it sounds as if he had so much to do, he simply could not cope, easy to make such mistakes under such pressure.

Building users, generally don't notice anything unless it jumps out and bites them. Had they even noticed, they would have just assumed it was a work in progress.

So far as the lack of boarding up goes, who knows. Perhaps it was a two handed job, to be able to do it safely. I appreciate he had managed to move the glass panels about, but that struggle might have frightened him off attempting the boarding up on his own.