Tahnie Martin inquest: Wooden panel was 'saturated with rot'
A wooden panel which killed a woman during Storm Doris was 'the most rotten' an expert had ever seen, a court heard.
Tahnie Martin died after she was struck by the falling panel in Wolverhampton's Dudley Street earlier this year.
The panel was part of a water tank structure on top of the plant room roof at the Black Rock building, which is part of the Mander Centre.
During the storm, the panel split in two with one piece moved by the wind to the roof of the O2 shop whilst the other fell to the ground in front of Starbucks on February 23 – striking Ms Martin.
The 29 year old, from Stafford, worked at the University of Wolverhampton.
The inquest was told that when Wolverhampton council expert Derek Bate inspected the wood he found it was 'off the scale' for timber rot at the highest reading, and 20 per cent at the lowest.
A reading of 20 per cent is the level which experts would expect to find rotting wood funghi present.
Mr Bate's statement continued: "The timbers were severely deteriorated as a result of wet rot. Any fixings would have no capacity to hold.
"It appear to be off the scale at the highest reading, indicating saturation whilst the lowest reading was 20 per cent indicating the presence of wood rot funghi.
"I have never seen deterioration such as in this case."
Mr Bate said that at the time when the fixings and panels were installed they were likely to have been compliant with the regulations of the time.
Meanwhile, Nick Wilkie, who surveyed the building on behalf of Benson Elliot and compiled a report about the entire roof, said: "There were a number of hazards on the roof in relation to structures that were not in the condition they needed to be.
"In my report I concluded that urgent work was required to fix these but they were not all in the same area as where the wood panel flew off.
"My understanding is that it was agreed that work would be done to fix this and I believe this is still ongoing."
The inquest continues.
