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Demolition boss could face jail after death in Buckie


By Alistair Whitfield

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A businessman could face up to two years in jail for an accident which claimed the life of an employee on a demolition site in Buckie in 2014.

Stuart Thompson, a 43 year-old divorced father-of-two from Bacup, Lancashire, was buried under a pile of rubble when a wall collapsed on top of him during demolition works at a former abbatoir and processing plant in Great Western Road.

Inverness Sheriff Court heard yesterday of a catalogue of health and safety failings at the construction site between October, 2013 and the day of the tragedy three months later.

Joseph Young (36), who's also form Bacup, was unable to attend Tuesday's hearing because of Covid restrictions.

But he pleaded guilty through agents.

Sheriff Sara Matheson deferred sentence on Young, a first offender, until January 5.

Fiscal depute Stella Swann, who narrated the facts leading up to the accident, apologised on behalf of the Crown Office on the delay in taking the case to court.

She said it was accepted there were "periods of inactivity" regarding the investigation at the Crown Office.

Young admitted as a director of SI Dismantling that he had failed to ensure Health and Safety at Work regulations.

Ms Swann told the court Young set up the company in April 2012.

It had never lodged accounts with Companies House and has no known assets.

She said: "The company has no regular employees. Joseph Young employed workers for the company on an ad hoc basis as the need arose and paid them cash in hand."

The court was told the deceased and another employee, Lee Clegg, were the only workers on the site on January 27, 2014.

They had spent the morning clearing scrap from an area where they had previously cut beams.

Mr Thompson was working with an oxy-acetaline gas burner cutting the girders while Mr Clegg worked on removing concrete from beams.

The fiscal said at one point Mr Clegg realised he had not seen nor heard from the deceased and made his way to the shed where he was working.

He could hear gas coming from the burner and saw a corner of the deceased's high visibility jacket under a pile of bricks. It was obvious that the wall had collapsed.

Ms Swann said: "He saw that he had a serious head injury and dialled 999. He made unsuccessful attempts to free the deceased and checked for a pulse but could not feel one."

Subsequent investigations revealed that the employees were not given adequate instructions about how to demolish or dismantle buildings and were simply left "to work it out for themselves".

Ms Swann said: "There is no evidence to suggest that there was any form of site monitoring for safety issues at the locus.

"It is clear that the accused Young allowed the deceased and other employees to concentrate on the removal of scrap metal without any supervision in a situation where they were not sufficiently trained or experienced enough to have understood the risks."

She added that one employee stated he had been told simply by the accused to 'crack on'.

A post mortem at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary confirmed the cause of death as "multiple injuries sustained in the course of demolition work".

Mr Thompson came from the same town in Lancashire as Young.

The maximum penalty for the offence is an unlimited fine or imprisonment not exceeding two years or both.


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