Five lives lost. Five years to come to court.
Two directors of a recycling plant where five men lost their lives, crushed under a collapsed wall, have appeared in court for the first time to face charges connected to the tragedy.
Wayne Anthony Hawkeswood and Graham John Woodhouse and the companies Hawkeswood Metal Recycling Ltd and Ensco 10101 Ltd face health and safety charges linked to the incident.
Hawkeswood and Woodhouse each also face four charges – two alleging they failed to discharge their health and safety duties to employees and to others not employed to ensure they were not exposed to risks, and two charges that further claim this failure was a result of their consent or connivance or was attributable to neglect.
The five men who died were Ousmane Kaba Diaby, Saibo Sumbundu Sillah, Bangally Tunkara Dukuray, Almamo Kinteh Jammeh and Mahamadou Jagana Jagana. A sixth man, Tombong Camara Conteh, sustained serious injuries.
The fatal accident occurred on 7 July 2016, approximately five months after the collapse of a boiler house at Didcot A Power Station claimed the lives of four demolition workers.
The timing and the scale of the Nechells incident drew parallels with the Didcot Disaster (see All Deaths Matter). But while the families of the five men killed at the recycling plant can now see progress being made, the same – sadly – cannot be said for the families of the four men killed at Didcot.
