The court has issued its Determination in a Fatal Accident Inquiry into the death of 10-year-old Shea Ryan on a construction site in July 2020.
The Determination analyses the causes of Shea's death in detail and sets out recommendations to help prevent such a tragedy from occurring again. These recommendations will be of interest to the construction industry.
Facts of the case
Shea Ryan climbed through an unsecured fence to access the site in Drumchapel, Glasgow, and then fell to his death down a manhole. RJ McLeod was previously fined £860,000 for health and safety breaches related to the incident. Although RJ McLeod was in control of the building site, other contractors were also working there, as is common in construction. The relationship and communication between parties on site was considered by the court.
Amey Black & Veatch (Amey) had been working on the site and transferred it to RJ McLeod in early July 2020. One cause of the accident was Amey’s failure to communicate the known risks to RJ McLeod. The manhole was a clear risk, which had previously been mitigated by placing a heavy ballast bag on top. The building site was in a residential area, near a play park. Children were known to play nearby, and there had been previous incidents of unauthorised access by both children and adults.
When RJ McLeod took over control of the site, they failed to adequately secure the perimeter to prevent unauthorised access and did not ensure the manhole was covered with a heavy ballast bag or similar. RJ McLeod also failed to carry out a suitable and sufficient risk assessment. Had they done so, they may have identified the importance of securing the perimeter and inspecting the manhole daily to ensure it was safe before staff left the site.
Recommendations
The Sheriff made a number of recommendations. Although these are mainly directed at the Health and Safety Executive, they are also of immediate relevance to the construction industry. These include:
- Promoting the objective of protecting children
- Recording incidents of perimeter breaches
- Promoting the duty of cooperation between principal contractors
- Consideration of duty to share information on transfer of construction sites
Taking these into account, the industry could deliver immediate improvements to safety on construction sites. Even implementing a single measure could help reduce the risk of similar tragedies in future.
