Electrician and QS on trial for death of woman

[rompling]

I Know its been posted about before but it seems the trial has begun ....
Very sad
Emma Shaw electrocuted 'because electrician was UNQUALIFIED' | Mail Online

 

[Badged01]

There's a lot of pressure put on people in all walks of life to do things quicker, cheaper etc .... all to make more money/profit for someone else and when you've got a family to feed and mortgage to pay it can make you do things you know you shouldnt do! But ultimately you know once you put your name on that bit of paper if things go wrong its gonna come back and bit you on the butt.

I was always told, "if you can't do the time, don't do the crime" ..... needs a bit of para-phrasing for electrical work but Im sure you get the jest!

 

[Guest111]

There's a lot of pressure put on people in all walks of life to do things quicker, cheaper etc .... all to make more money/profit for someone else and when you've got a family to feed and mortgage to pay it can make you do things you know you shouldnt do! But ultimately you know once you put your name on that bit of paper if things go wrong its gonna come back and bit you on the butt.

I was always told, "if you can't do the time, don't do the crime" ..... needs a bit of para-phrasing for electrical work but Im sure you get the jest!

Too right,many years ago I worked as a QS for a firm and packed in because they wanted me to make up test sheets for houses rather than test each one,basically they wanted me to test something like 1 in 5 and adjust the figures slightly for the other 4.

 

[Badged01]

Social housing contracts are cut throat! The commercial guys win the contracts at ridiculously low bids just so they get the work. They then expect someone else to put their butts on the line to make sure they make the profit they want. And of course there is no comeback on the commercial team if someone is injured or killed, its the inspector signing it all off!

On a similar note, I once did a bid where I wanted two £1M test rigs to do the contract. Having won the contract it was then decided by the commercial director (against engineering advice) that we would only order one test rig and 'thrash' it 24/7. 2 years down the line after the contract started the program was slipping quicker than going down a greasy firemans pole. 'Told you' was the cry and with some pretty hefty liquidated damages looming the decision was made to procure another one to recover. Don't bother was my response, save yourself £1M, we are going to slip 1 yr but the lead-time for a new rig is 18mths!

Making money is such a big driver that people will take risks and all engineering logic just flies out the window. You just have to have the moral courage to stand up and say "NO", which is a lot easier to say than do!

 

[Diddy]

All these guy's signing off stuff that they have not personally checked at least even a random re-check or something for goodness sake. Me ? I even sign "Unchecked" when I have copped the delivery driver before the boss or apprentice haha.

 

[pepparz]

would say without correct bonding, an RCD isn`t worth a carrot

dont understand this, bonding isnt needed for the operation of a rcd

 

[NickD]

My understanding of rcds from the 80`s ....is a human body would withstand upto 50mA before fatality occurs....hence rcds where set at 30mA, so using the human body as a path to earth, a limited current would pass in only milli seconds to trip the said rcd, hence saving the life, so Part of the Ecir test, would be the rcd ms timing....

My understanding, horrible though it is, is that the limits of how many mA will kill a human were largely investigated and established in ---- concentration camps during the 1940s.

 

[pepparz]

her body was live through the live puddle but she'd have felt nothing until she tounched earth which was the potenial difference needed for electricution. had an rcd been installed it would have operated as soon as she earthed herself which is the impalance needed to operate the device, so whats bonding got to do with it?

 

[NickD]

her body was live through the live puddle but she'd have felt nothing until she tounched earth which was the potenial difference needed for electricution. had an rcd been installed it would have operated as soon as she earthed herself which is the impalance needed to operate the device, so whats bonding got to do with it?

Eggsactly.

"First principles, Clarice. Simplicity. Read Marcus Aurelius. Of each particular thing ask: what is it in itself? What is its nature?"

 

[pepparz]

if anyone has problems understanding how this electricution happened and how it could have been avoided please dont do any electrical work.

 

[silver surfer]

Because the QS (the assessed competent and trained electrical supervisor) is discharging his duties for him, checking all the work has been done correctly and signing all relevent paperwork to this effect! The bosses shoulders have sloped .......[Usually the Managing director or owner of the company is the Duty holder for the business, i"m surprised that he isn't in the dock, he still could be the trial is in its infancy.]

 

[silver surfer]

Because the QS (the assessed competent and trained electrical supervisor) is discharging his duties for him, checking all the work has been done correctly and signing all relevent paperwork to this effect! The bosses shoulders have sloped .......[Usually the Managing director or owner of the company is the Duty holder for the business, i"m surprised that he isn't in the dock, he still could be the trial is in its infancy.]

 

[barneybhoy]

The niceic lead you to believe that the qs is not responsible for how the inspector obtained the readings in the report, only that the report is compiled correctly and any issues that should be flagged up by the readings are recorded appropriately. If the eicr was filled in correctly and there were no readings recorded that would show any sort of issue, surely the qs wouldnt be held responsible for someone elses work?

 

[Plonker 3]

So why do all the scams only asses the QS annually then?

 

[Badged01]

Who actually gets prosecuted is usually down to H&S. I think they take the view that the 'electrician' doing the work is responsible along with the supervisor (QS) who is the companies delegated technical/competant authority. The "duty holder" has exercise his duty of care in appointing a QS under the govt endorsed scheme which is there to ensure safety standards etc...!

I think the logic is the electrician shouldn't be doing the work unless he is "competent", so he is clearly culpable, and the QS shouldn't be signing off work he 1) hasn't checked and 2) is done by someone who isn't "competent". Hence he is equally culpable.

 

[Plonker 3]

So surely if it's done via a scam, then the scam is liable too. As they have said the QS is competent, like the QS has said the person carrying out the work is?

 

[Badged01]

So surely if it's done via a scam, then the scam is liable too. As they have said the QS is competent, like the QS has said the person carrying out the work is?

He probably is "competent" and has all the quals, experience, knowledge etc ... required to meet the govts assessment std for being a QS. He just hasn't behaved in a competent way in this case!!

 

[barneybhoy]

Who actually gets prosecuted is usually down to H&S. I think they take the view that the 'electrician' doing the work is responsible along with the supervisor (QS) who is the companies delegated technical/competant authority. The "duty holder" has exercise his duty of care in appointing a QS under the govt endorsed scheme which is there to ensure safety standards etc...!

I think the logic is the electrician shouldn't be doing the work unless he is "competent", so he is clearly culpable, and the QS shouldn't be signing off work he 1) hasn't checked and 2) is done by someone who isn't "competent". Hence he is equally culpable.

how far can the QS reasonably go to ensure the work is being carried out correctly? If you've got 10 guys working under you, you cant be with all 10 of them at every stage of the inspection/testing, how can you protect yourself? Even with regular supervision checks you still have to take the inspector at face value that they have carried out the job correctly, apart from going through all results with a fine tooth comb and implementing regular checks (keeping a record of checks) what else can the QS realistically do

 

[The_Wanderer]

To say someone was tragically killed and i quote "because" of the guy who did the inspection is madness is it not? He didn't cause anyone death, might have failed to spot a fault maybe, but even that is impossible to know or prove.

I once had a nightmare fault finding a tripping RCD, that after several hours we found only happened when a large pile of books (or similar) was placed on the hallway desk, without the books all circuits had clean IR results and no errors could be found. But put the books on the desk and viola IR readings of dead short L-E.

So who's to say this fella didn't do his testing when the screw wasn't quite making a short, but it later did short and killed the poor woman..?

Amazed it got to court, surely a lawyer would destroy the claim as totally unprovable, and it wouldn't even see the light of day? Very worrying precedent for our work if you can be accountable after an EICR for tragic incidents out of your control. Sure it sounds like he wasn't confident and thats bad, but still. I shall watch this case with interest.

And for the media to jump on the "unqualified" tagline, Pretty certain the laws and regs on qualified or not is very muddy area, i.e. doesn't it state a "competent person"..

 

[silver surfer]

Who actually gets prosecuted is usually down to H&S. I think they take the view that the 'electrician' doing the work is responsible along with the supervisor (QS) who is the companies delegated technical/competant authority. The "duty holder" has exercise his duty of care in appointing a QS under the govt endorsed scheme which is there to ensure safety standards etc...!

I think the logic is the electrician shouldn't be doing the work unless he is "competent", so he is clearly culpable, and the QS shouldn't be signing off work he 1) hasn't checked and 2) is done by someone who isn't "competent". Hence he is equally culpable.

I agree that the duty holder is fulfilling his responsibilities regarding appointing a suitable QS. But the DH should be held to account for sending a clearly unsuitable person to carry out the testing. Im unsure whether the QS actually fabricated the results or was he handed a set of bogus results by the adult mate.

 

[Badged01]

... Amazed it got to court, surely a lawyer would destroy the claim as totally unprovable, and it wouldn't even see the light of day? Very worrying precedent for our work if you can be accountable after an EICR for tragic incidents out of your control. Sure it sounds like he wasn't confident and thats bad, but still. I shall watch this case with interest....

Very worrying case for anyone who is a QS! You are signing the paperwork to say you're happy that everything meets all the regs etc...... as far as you can reasonably expect it to. If you weren't doing that what exactly are you signing for?

How you ensure everything is 'correct' before you sign is upto you -- standing over their shoulder watching them all the time, dip checking samples of their work once completed, suprise visits on the job to see how they are doing, or whatever your supervision method is. However you do it as a QS you will have documented it in your works diary(?) so can use that in your defence to show how you exercise your duty as a QS for all the work you do supervise to ensure as far as you possible can it meets regs etc .....

I'm assuming in this case the QS has signed off work completed by someone 'unqualified' to conduct an EICR, so he will have a hard time defending his supervison actions! The fact that the boss send him to do the work is immaterial .... he should never have signed it!

 

[Badged01]

.... the DH should be held to account for sending a clearly unsuitable person to carry out the testing....

An employee also has a duty of care also to only complete work he is "competent" to do ..... maybe he had convinced the boss he was competent? Only the HSE will know why the boss wasn't actioned but I think they take the view the buck stops with the QS --- that's his job to supervise and authorise work.

 

[D Skelton]

Why are we talking about this? The case is sub judice and just talking about it on a public forum could potentially be contempt of court.

I for one want to see the two defendants receive a fair trial! The more we speculate about things which are completely unknown to us the less chance there is of this happening!

I would suggest the mods either close or remove this thread altogether!

Edit: Please bear in mind that if at any point the court decides that a fair trial is unlikely, the two guys will walk!

 

[silver surfer]

There is an obvious flaw in the QS system as he or she can not be expected to supervise every activity on numerous sites.
As others have already said, the fault in this case may not have been picked up anyway, the reason they are all in court is due to the admission by the mate that he did not really know how to test properly. The QS admitting he had not been to the job but is in a position to sign off the work (endorsed by the scheme provider) is a concept that the CPS would have trouble digesting.

 

[pepparz]

Did the circuit in question require rcd at the time of installation as it looks like it was less than 50mm deep, if so the installer is primarily to blame. Incidents like this are exactly why rcd protection is required.

 

[MDJ]

Why are we talking about this? The case is sub judice and just talking about it on a public forum could potentially be contempt of court.

I for one want to see the two defendants receive a fair trial! The more we speculate about things which are completely unknown to us the less chance there is of this happening!

I would suggest the mods either close or remove this thread altogether!

Edit: Please bear in mind that if at any point the court decides that a fair trial is unlikely, the two guys will walk!

I think your right actually and thought something similar after my post earlier, I was going to remove it but someone used it as a quote so it seemed pointless, your right though too much attention with regard to this case from sparks may make it over discussed and the media may see this thread and others and jump on the bandwagon which could lead to a unfair trial, the contempt of court bit is a bit ott though lol.

 

[Badged01]

..... The case is sub judice and just talking about it on a public forum could potentially be contempt of court. ...

Best tell that to the Daily Mail, they've convicted them in their absence!

In the land of the free speech, provided you are offering your "opinion" and not interfering with the legal process then contemp will not be an issue ....... anyway im hidden behind a screen so no-one knows who I am

 

[Plonker 3]

Too many variables to say what might have caused it. When was the screw put in, when was the cable installed, why didn't we listen to Cockburn.

 

[Badged01]

I think your right actually and thought something similar after my post earlier, I was going to remove it but someone used it as a quote so it seemed pointless

You are entitled to air your opinion, so dont worry the police wont be around for you tonight! Well not for what you've posted on this thread ......

 

[shanky887614]

How can you become responsible for an installation after an electrical installation condition report.

its the same as blaming the garage that passed the cars mot before it blew up and killed the driver

 

[MDJ]

You are entitled to air your opinion, so dont worry the police wont be around for you tonight! Well not for what you've posted on this thread ......

you daft so and so, I know I cannot get into trouble lol, I mean too many opinions could attract media attention and the media reporting could harm the case you silly sausage.

 

[D Skelton]

the contempt of court bit is a bit ott though lol.

Damaging a trial is technically contempt of court mate.

Best tell that to the Daily Mail, they've convicted them in their absence!

In the land of the free speech, provided you are offering your "opinion" and not interfering with the legal process then contemp will not be an issue ....... anyway im hidden behind a screen so no-one knows who I am

No, read the article again!

It only revelas what exactly has been said in court, which is now public knowledge. It does not speculate and it does not offer an opinion!

Offering an opinion can potentially interfere with legal proceedings, especially when members of a jury are influenced by that opinion, and in such cases a trial will be brought to an end on that basis and there will be no sentencing.

In other words, the two fellas walk if the court find out that the jury have been influenced by anything other than facts presented in court.

We should not be discussing this

 

[Badged01]

No, read the article again!

If you can find them read some of the articles in the tabloids before the court case .....

Offering an opinion can potentially interfere with legal proceedings, especially when members of a jury are influenced by that opinion, and in such cases a trial will be brought to an end on that basis and there will be no sentencing.

Check you legal process. Your opinion is yours and if you choose to air you opinon you can as free speech. Stating facts is a different kettle of fish, hence when you state anything you are advised to caveat with "in my opinion". (i.e "in my opinion this is what happened" rather than "this is what happened"). Plus of course thats why at the trial the judge warns the jury as to being influenced by outside events ......

[/QUOTE]We should not be discussing this[/QUOTE]

If we wish to raise opinions and debate then there is no legal reason I can see why we cant? And as my caveat, all posts in this thread have been my opinion with no basis of fact as to actual event or persons!

 

[D Skelton]

If you can find them read some of the articles in the tabloids before the court case .....



Check you legal process. Your opinion is yours and if you choose to air you opinon you can as free speech. Stating facts is a different kettle of fish, hence when you state anything you are advised to caveat with "in my opinion". (i.e "in my opinion this is what happened" rather than "this is what happened"). Plus of course thats why at the trial the judge warns the jury as to being influenced by outside events ......

We should not be discussing this[/QUOTE]

If we wish to raise opinions and debate then there is no legal reason I can see why we cant? And as my caveat, all posts in this thread have been my opinion with no basis of fact as to actual event or persons![/QUOTE]

I'm not arguing with your opinion in particular, in fact I haven't even read it, but you are correct, you can air an opinon, but that doesn't stop anyone else taking that opinion from you and airing it as fact.

Some people don't know how damaging talking about trails can be.

Just last year there was a pedo on trail up north somewhere who walked free because he'd already been given trial by media!

In my opinion we should stick to discussing this after the trial has finished, until then, much of what is discussed will be heresay, potentially damaging to a fair trial and of no use to anyone whatsoever.

 

[silver surfer]

http://electrical.------.org/wiring-matters/43/unlawful-killing.cfm?type=pdf

More clarity here.

 

[southsea1201]

today's news from Wolverhamton.
Test may have found electrical fault which killed mother, court told « Express & Star

Interested to know how an IR test would have highlighted this problem.

I think we can discuss what is in the press.

 

[derek]

Interesting that the coroner was planning on writing to "NICEIC and other relevant bodies to ask them if anything can be done to curb the practice of electricians signing safety certificates based solely on information reported to them by others". I wonder if the committee that Mr Skelton went to address were aware of this particular case.

 

[D Skelton]

I wonder if the committee that Mr Skelton went to address were aware of this particular case.

Yes, they were, and that's why they told us very clearly at the beginning of the session that any ongoing court cases were not to be mentioned. They were specifically referring to this very court case.

 

[tazz]

This was a good debate, earlier today skipping around the case, and getting into preventive measures. I think Mr Skeltons comments need to be taken on board, as speculation and hearsay can be a dangerous game

 

[southsea1201]

As news becomes available we should discuss this. It will be interesting to hear the defence when they have their turn

 

[Gavin A]

Damaging a trial is technically contempt of court mate.



No, read the article again!

It only revelas what exactly has been said in court, which is now public knowledge. It does not speculate and it does not offer an opinion!

Offering an opinion can potentially interfere with legal proceedings, especially when members of a jury are influenced by that opinion, and in such cases a trial will be brought to an end on that basis and there will be no sentencing.

In other words, the two fellas walk if the court find out that the jury have been influenced by anything other than facts presented in court.

We should not be discussing this

the counter argument to this being that for a juror to see this thread they'd have to have search for the case on google, which itself would be illegal and they'd be the ones being prosecuted for contempt.

This isn't a newspaper, it's a specialist forum that these jurors would be extremely unlikely to stumble across accidentally, which is where the sub judice laws come from.