Luxury property firms fined £1.3m after man killed by falling window in London
Two UK companies were fined a combined £1.3m for health and safety breaches after a coach driver was crushed by a window that fell 26 storeys from a luxury London development. The court found the firms ignored foreseeable risks despite a similar incident a year earlier.
A judge at Inner London Crown Court has fined two companies a combined £1.3m over health and safety failings that led to the death of a 53-year-old coach driver. Mick Ferris was crushed on 2 October 2018 when a window pane fell 26 storeys from the Corniche, a luxury residential development in Vauxhall, beside the River Thames.
Developer St James Group Ltd was fined £1m, while specialist facade contractor Lindner Prater was fined £300,000. Both companies were also ordered to pay costs of £125,000 each. In August, both firms were convicted of failing to discharge a duty under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, with the court finding they had ignored foreseeable risks.
Ferris, who worked as a driver for Clarkes of London, was returning to his coach when the 130kg window pane, roughly 85cm wide and 190cm tall, fell from a height of about 90 metres. The trial heard that a similar window had fallen from the same building in August 2017, but no significant design changes followed that earlier incident.
The window's design was found unsafe because it opened outward and relied on a single metal restrictor that wind could dislodge. Mr Justice Boyle said the sentencing was not based on the design itself being unsafe, since such windows are common in the industry and no Health and Safety Executive guidance prohibits their use. However, he said St James should have been more rigorous in ensuring the critical safety component was properly fitted and functioning.
Ferris's widow, Rachel, told the court in a statement that her husband's death could have happened to anyone and could have been prevented had someone acted differently. HSE principal inspector James Goldfinch said after the hearing that Ferris lost his life due to the failings of two leading companies in their field, adding that lessons from the near-miss a year earlier had not been learned. A spokesperson for St James said the company acknowledged the court's sentencing decision and that its thoughts remained with Ferris's family.
