Company admits industry rules breach over woman killed by storm debris blown off a roof in Wolverhampton
A company has admitted breaching property industry rules after a woman was killed by debris blown off a roof in Wolverhampton by Storm Doris almost six years ago.
University worker Tahnie Martin, 29, from Stafford, was struck by a wooden panel which was torn from its rotted fixings at the Mander Centre, in the city centre, on February 23, 2017.
Ms Martin was walking past Starbucks, in Dudley Street, shortly before 11.30am when a 4ft 2ins by 5ft piece of wood was blown from the six-storey Black Rock Building, part of the shopping centre, hitting her in the street below and injuring her friend Raman Sarpal.
Cushman and Wakefield Debenham Tie Leung Limited, the managing agent responsible for centre maintenance at the time of the incident, admitted two charges relating to health and safety breaches at a disciplinary hearing of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) on Tuesday.
The charges relate to the firm being convicted by Wolverhampton magistrates in 2019 of failing to ensure people were not exposed to risks to their health and safety. And that between April 2011 and 23 February 2017 the firm failed to act with "due skill, care and diligence" in its appointment of a centre property manager.
The panel was told that issues included failing to identify the structures on the sixth-floor plant room roof of the building, failing to request safe arrangements to inspect the roof, to inspect the roof structures, to carry out repairs and to appropriately supervise the manager.
Cushman and Wakefield admitted responsibility for its actions in subsequent court hearings.
Representing the company this week, Eleanor Sanderson told the panel: "It is accepted by my client both the aggravating and mitigating features in this case which has been a large part of your mitigation when deciding what sanction is required.
"The breach was causative of tragic death and injury.
"Once more it is the intention of the company to express its very deepest regret for the failings which gave rise to the death of Tahnie Martin, to her family and to her friends. Nothing attached to what I say is intended to detract from that situation.
"The company has done everything it can to learn lessons from the tragedy. This is not a case of recklessness, dishonesty, deliberate or intentional breach."
Tahnie, a Wolverhampton University marketing worker, was killed and Mrs Sarpal suffered leg injuries when the wooden panel which had been attached to rotten and corroded fixings on the brick water tower blew off in 59mph winds. Tests showed that the panel had not been painted since 1998, when this should have happened every three or five years.
The company was subsequently sentenced and fined £1.3 million at the city's crown court in July 2019.
It is now facing disciplinary action under RICS by-laws relating to Rule 4 of the Rules of Conduct for Firms 2007.
The hearing continues.
