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FACK Send Heartfelt Thoughts To The Family Of Worker Crushed To Death

Families Against Corporate Killers (FACK) have expressed their heartfelt condolences for the family of Derek McLean, 43, who was crushed to death after attempting to move a 3.5 tonne demolition machine up a set of stairs by remote control in August 2019 at St Enoch Centre in Glasgow.

The Construction firm Core Cut Limited was fined £10,000 after the death of Derek McLean, admitting it had failed to write a sufficiently detailed risk assessment. But the precise circumstances of the accident were unknown it was stated at the Glasgow Sheriff Court.

The court were told that Mr McLean was operating the machine, which moves on tracks, while standing behind it instead of in front.

CCTV showed Mr McLean part way through controlling the Brokk demolition machine, which grips the stairs by its tracks.

The court heard that the machine had been moved up the stairs previously, but it struggled to gain appropriate grip when Mr McLean was operating it.

He was later found trapped between the machine and a concrete wall in the stairwell. The remote control used to operate the machine was found around his waistband.

A timber board - used to help move the machine upstairs - was found against a wall while another was underneath the left track of the equipment.

Sheriff John McCormick said the death did not occur as a consequence of the risk assessment failure. He said:

"Mr McLean was behind the machine on an incline where he should have been in front of it. The machine had successfully negotiated the same stairwell previously and that after the incident, another engineer experienced no difficulty in taking the machine up to the landing. Further mitigating factors include that the lack of an assessment was not profit motivated. There had been an assessment but it was not sufficiently detailed."

The hearing was told that Core Cut Limited - a family firm that employed Mr McLean in 2011 - had no previous convictions and had 42 members of staff.

Barry Smith, defending, added that Mr McLean was regarded as one of the most experienced operators in the company.

Mr McLean's family said in a statement: "While the sentence may reflect a degree of accountability and leads to improving safety for others, it does not reflect the pain and trauma we feel following the loss of Derek.
"We would like to thank those around us who provided support and comfort over the last three years."

Source: FACK / BBC News

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