Aftermath of Hatfield
Perhaps the most famous of all of Balfour Beatty’s fatal breaches of Health and Safety regulations (and there’s been a lot of them) was the Hatfield rail disaster in October 2000, where four members of the public died and 102 were injured when a train from Leeds to London crashed at nearly 120mph after a section of track shattered into 300 pieces.
Over a year before the horrifying crash, executives of Balfour Beatty had recognised that the particular section of track where the tragedy would unfold was in “an appalling and totally unacceptable condition,” and yet no extra speed restrictions were put in place and no effort was made to replace it.
For half-a-year before the crash a brand new section of track sat waiting to replace the dodgy section, but the company’s bosses never gave the order to install it. Several Balfour Beatty higher-ups were charged with corporate manslaughter, but managed to duck the charges (which even the Judge expressed annoyance with). The company was found guilty of breaking Health and Safety laws, and ordered to pay a £10 million fine.
Balfour’s corporate lawyers managed to bring down the fine to £7.5 million in 2006, complaining that it was excessive. This was the same year where pre-tax profits for the company stood at £152 million.
At the time Bob Crow (head of RMT union) rightly slammed the court decision, saying “It is an absolute scandal that once again the courts have given sympathetic treatment to negligent bosses who today will be laughing up their sleeve.” The fine they received barely made a dent in the company’s profits, and meant that Balfour’s record of cutting corners and risking lives continued unchallenged.
- Bobby Wood
The deaths of these four commuters are not the only ones Balfour Beatty has been responsible for. In 1999 four-year-old Bobby Wood rode his bike onto a live track, was electrocuted and subsequently died from his injuries. Balfour was fined £150,000 for failing to prevent access to the track. To put this fine in perspective, the current Chief Executive of Balfour earns over a million pounds per year. Balfour clearly won’t take health and safety seriously if they can keep profitting while breaking the law and putting people’s lives at risk.
Balfour was also one of five companies found liable when 35-year old miner Gary Woodward was crushed to death by machinery while working on the construction of the channel tunnel in 1989. This time they were made to pay out a paltry six grand, as well as the other companies.
Balfour also had to pay a £180k fine after numerous health and safety breaches (including not giving workers correct gloves for handling electrics, providing no supervision and failing to train staff properly) lead to the electrocution and death of 29 year old railway worker Jason Lee Pepall in 2003.
In 2000 yet another worker died due to managerial laziness and cost-cutting from Balfour. 22 year old Mike Mungovan had only been working on a railway construction project for three days when he was hit by an empty train on the track near Vauxhall.
- Mike Mungovan
He had been working for a recruitment agency and had not been given any instruction about working on live railway tracks, and yet Balfour put him on the project anyway. In 2004 they were fined £150,000 after pleading guilty to breaking health and safety law. Mr. Mungovan’s father was furious that the fine would not be enough to hurt the company or force its’ bosses to change their behaviour.
The construction giant also received a £1.2 million fine in 1999 for the 1994 collapse of a tunnel it had been working on at Heathrow Airport. An inquiry into the (fortunately) non-lethal incident concluded “The collapse could have been prevented but for a cultural mind-set which focused attention on the apparent economies and the need for production rather than the particular risk.” Balfour’s executives would clearly rather put the skeletons in the cupboard than pay for the safety of their employees and the public.
