Firm fined after Birmingham city centre hoarding collapse

Mar 28 2008 By Paul Suart and Lauren Taylor

A CONSTRUCTION company has been ordered to pay £17,000 for a breach of safety which left a woman trapped under hoardings on a busy city centre pavement.

Building giant Bowmer and Kirkland was hit with the maximum fine, reduced to £15,000 because of an early guilty plea, and ordered to pay £1,940 additional costs at a Health and Safety Executive hearing at Birmingham Magistrates Court.

The executive launched an investigation after computer operator Jacqui Ward, from Castle Bromwich, was struck by three hoarding panels loosened by high winds on February 28 last year.

The 58-year-old mum was dragged by the panels into a bus lane outside the £60 million 14-storey Colmore Plaza development, Colmore Circus, where she remained until site workers and passers-by freed her.

Ms Ward, who lives with her partner Phil, sustained serious cuts and bruises and still suffers pain in her little left toe.

She said: "I just could not get out of its path. I knew it was going to happen which is probably more scary than not knowing. I was absolutely petrified.

"I thought I'd suffered a brain injury and was just glad to be alive."

At the hearing yesterday it emerged that hoardings at the same site had broken free during high winds six weeks earlier and that no safety designs had been calculated regarding the strength of the panels.

Robert Kirkland, owner of the Derbyshire based firm, extended his apologies to Ms Ward in person at the hearing and accepted the company was at fault.

A spokesperson for Bowmer and Kirkland said: "We apologise to Mrs Ward."

An offer of £2,000 compensation from Bowmer and Kirkland has already been rejected by Ms Ward who is consulting her solicitors on a settlement.