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 Victim Saurav Ghai, 2, was passing with his childminder |
‘Hidden defects in wall cost a toddler his life’
Inquest told surveyors carried out two checks months before gale brought bricks toppling down as boy passed with his childminder
TO a series of surveyors there was nothing too out of the ordinary with the brick boundary wall at the Wendling council estate, a few visible cracks that would need fixing at some stage but nothing serious.
It was only in the most tragic circumstances that the apparently hidden defects in the wall were finally revealed.
Two-year-old Saurav Ghai died when he was crushed by bricks when a panel of the wall in Southampton Road, Gospel Oak, gave way during gales in January.
Held together with little more than two metal ties – bolts that a series of builders and surveyors admitted this week they would not be happy with if they were used in their own homes – the wall was not rebuilt properly during repair work 10 years ago.
The contractor responsible for the repairs was named this week for the first time as Chatterton, a firm which ceased trading four years ago and which, according to police and Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigators, cannot now be traced.
Camden Council, which is responsible for the wall, as it is part of one of its housing estates, told a St Pancras inquest that only a sample of external repairs are checked after they are completed – roughly 10 per cent of work – and the role of supervising the job would have been handed to the contractor.
In short, Chatterton was responsible to a large extent for checking its own work across Camden’s council estates.
Ross Barber, who worked as an area surveyor for Camden but has since moved to a different role at the council, told the hearing on Tuesday: “We have to have some trust in the contractors. We have to rely on the contractors.”
Catherine Illingworth, an assistant housing director at Camden, added: “It is a usual way of working, short of standing over a contractor checking what they are doing. I don’t think you see something that is not visible to the eye.”
She added that recent practice had been to have “regular meetings” with contractors and that Camden has employed a structural engineer to check on work.
When the Wendling wall came down, the inquest heard, there was no evidence of the stabilising brick piers that are likely to be used when it is replaced next year.
There was no evidence of strong “propriety ties” favoured by industry experts. Instead, there were two metal ties on one side of the wall. Surveyors said, if that method was to be used, there should have been a tie every two or three bricks rather than just one at the top and another at the bottom. The rest of the joint appeared to be packed with cement mix and newspaper, the hearing heard.
It was by chance that one of the weakest panels in the wall, probably free-standing and of “poor design” according to HSE experts, collapsed just as Saurav was walking past with his childminder.
If he had passed by a few seconds later, or earlier, he would have escaped unhurt. Somebody older might have survived the shower of bricks but Saurav stood little chance. He was taken to hospital but could not be revived.
These are the maybes and what-ifs that must haunt his father Vinay, a banker for a City firm, and mother Desiree, a performance analyst, who live in gated Parkhill Mews, in Belsize Park.
By the end of the inquest, they will at least be expecting some answers to the clinical issues in the case, the apparent defects in the wall and why it was liable to fall down when severe gales struck in January – albeit the strongest winds that London had seen for 15 years.
The family have appealed for privacy as they listen to the details of the tragedy from the front bench of the court with a lawyer questioning witnesses on their behalf. The most harrowing evidence was given by eye-witness Angela Bennett, who was close to tears as she remembered the scene.
“A huge gust of wind came and suddenly the whole wall just blew on top of him,” she said. “I ran over and tried to get him out. I got on the floor and started taking bricks off with my hands. I was crying and screaming. I saw his little feet first, then his head and just kept going.”
The childminder with Saurav, who was injured but survived the crush, will not give evidence.
Coroner Dr Andrew Reid, who was forced to break the inquest for two days to cover work at another court in Poplar yesterday (Wednesday) and today (Thursday), said he was anxious for the proceedings to be completed and to ensure the family got answers to their questions as soon as possible. He said he was keen for the inquest to be resolved even if the HSE is still investigating the case.
Dr Reid and a jury of five men and four women have had to listen to evidence without the help of Edwin Craddock, a former council official whose name appears on a docket ordering work on the section of wall in 1997. Mr Craddock did not answer a witness summons.
When he spoke to the Health and Safety Executive earlier this year, he told them that temporary staff might have used his computer log-on code to get access to the council’s system and order work.
HSE investigator Michael La Rose said: “He said he had little work at Wendling and can’t remember the work at the boundary wall. He said he would have remembered it.” Mr Craddock was last traced to Birmingham and has only helped the HSE inquiry in writing so far.
The difficulty in finding Chatterton has also hampered the inquest as there is nobody in court who has admitted to having worked on the key panel.
Instead, council workers who repaired other bits of the boundary wall – which was around 200 metres long until it was demolished the day after Saurav’s death as a safety precaution – have given evidence to the inquest.
David Warren, who worked for the council’s in-house repair team, told the court that when part of it was rebuilt further down the wall in 2002, an experienced bricklayer had insisted on using stabilising brick piers at the foot of the wall to improve safety – rather than metal ties.
He said he was aware of what metal ties – known as EMLs (expanded metal lathing) – were, but added: “I think if it was my house, I probably wouldn’t have used it. It looks exactly like a coat hanger twisted into the shape of a butterfly and sits between the bricks.”
Camden has a government requirement to check its stock at least once every five years, although this rule does not cover a full structural analysis of every building. As the New Journal revealed in February, it was in the process of this task when the wall collapsed.
The inquest heard that a condition report by outside surveyors FPD Savills arrived on the desks of housing staff just five days after the gales.
Two freelance surveyors hired by Savills told the inquest that, during separate checks in the six months prior to the accident, they found nothing that would be an immediate danger. Both advised that some repair work would be needed to fix cracks in the wall but neither believed any part of the wall was close to collapse.
The first, Nicholas Bradley, who looked at the Wendling estate as part of a pilot study in October last year, said that Camden needed to spend £400 on a wider structural investigation, due to cracks in the wall.
But he added: “There was incidence of cracking in various places, attributable in my mind to a variety of likely causes, growth of trees adjacent to the wall, tenants’ fence-posts that had been banged into the ground near the wall and vibrations from the road.
“But there was nothing that caused any undue concern.”
During the wider survey, Mr Bradley flagged up two serious issues elsewhere that needed urgent attention, including a “bulging” wall in Leighton Road, Kentish Town, that was in danger of falling onto a barbecue and children’s play area.
He told the court that he did not have similar worries at Wendling. “If I had seen leaning, bulging other than cracks, I would have taken a more serious view. Cracks of that sort I have seen many, many times. It’s not abnormal to see.”
The second surveyor to look at the wall was Gordon Fraser, who made an inspection a few months later.
He said Camden would need to spend £6,000 to deal with subsidence issues, but again did not register any serious cause for immediate concern.
“At the time I just looked at the crack in the wall and put down £6,000,” Mr Fraser told the inquest. “If I had seen something more dangerous then I would have made a call to my office. I’d assume that if the wall was recently built then it would have (adequate) wall ties. It’s kind of up to Camden Council with what they do with that information. I personally didn’t have any conversations with Camden Council.”
Mr La Rose said the HSE investigation was near completion, although he still needed to speak to some council employees and access documents over other repairwork.
The hearing resumes tomorrow (Friday) morning. |
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