Glasgow Sheriff Court, 17 June

The Fatal Accident Inquiry into the workplace death of Dr Graham Meldrum heard employer Val Brown admit that he had no knowledge of any employers' legal health and safety responsibilities.  Mr Brown was asked four times if he had knowledge of the various different laws which govern health and safety in the field of driving and lifting operations.   Four times he replied simply, “No.”                                                                           

Mr Brown, former boss of the Suzyline agency, was then asked if he was aware of employers' legal obligations under Section 2 of the Health and Safety Work Act 1974, which applies to everyone with a contract of employment. Again he replied “No.”

Dr Meldrum was killed when crushed by the faulty tail lift of an Allied Bakeries delivery truck at their Glasgow depot on 12 July 2005. Both Allied Bakeries and TNT Logistics UK were prosecuted and found guilty, but received only paltry fines of £17,500 and £14,000.  Graham's employers, Suzyline agency, were not prosecuted, supposedly because of “lack of evidence”. 

Some months after Dr Meldrum's death Mr Brown dissolved Suzyline – and then started up an agency called Staff Depot, based in Uddingston and doing the same work, as an agency supplying drivers.

Graham Meldrum Memorial Campaign vigil at Glasgow Sheriff Court August 2007

PROFIT KILLS

“Graham's death was to do with casualisation, with the use of Agency drivers,” Graham's partner Karen Thomson told Indymedia Scotland.   “Every bit of evidence at the Fatal Accident Inquiry comes down to time and money, the employers wanting to save time and money.”

Again and again the evidence in the Inquiry has pointed to a key figure in the decisions to cut back on lorry maintainance which led up to the killing of Dr Meldrum.   Witness after witness has pointed the finger at Allied Bakeries maintenance manager Keith Thomson.  

Mr Thomson himself admitted to the Inquiry that there were six defects found on the lorry being operated by Dr Meldrum the day before the fatal incident.

Driver John Kane, 47, told the Inquiry he had reported a series of defects on that lorry that day.  He said the vehicle was pulling to the right when braking.  And crucially, the tail lift mechanism which killed Dr Meldrum had several defects.  There was no internal button for the tail lift to go up, the tail lift was sticking on the near side and the bracket and locking pin of the tail lift were missing.

Further, the lorry had a history of defects, faults having been detected at three separate checks in the months preceding Dr Meldrum's death.  Long-running defects included pins missing in the tail lift mechanism which crushed Dr Meldrum.

Mr Thomson told the Inquiry that there were no checks to ensure that repairs were carried out.

CUTTING CORNERS

The Inquiry heard that Allied Bakeries cut corners on health and safety to save money and stop lorries going off the road to be repaired.   They scrapped a maintenance contract on the grounds that it was too expensive and only carried out running repairs, often ignoring defects altogether. They introduced a policy of not repairing the automatic mechanism on the tail lift, so that it had to be operated manually.

The tail lift lifting platform on the lorry driven operated by Dr Meldrum when he was killed was one of only 50 such platforms in existence. It was specially constructed for Allied Bakeries so that enormous amounts of bread could be loaded and unloaded in one operation, saving the company time and money. The platforms, capable of holding up to two and a half tonnes, were described at the Inquiry by people familiar with them as “heavy and unpredictable”.

Allied Bakeries failed to build sufficient loading bays at their depot, which would have allowed a safer working system. Instead workers were forced to use the “heavy and unpredictable” and frequently faulty tail lifts.