Two construction firms have been ordered to pay more than £1.5 million after a grandfather was killed by a 130kg window that plunged 300 feet from a luxury riverside tower in Vauxhall — a year after a similar pane had already fallen from the same building.
Mick Ferris, 53, who worked as a coach driver, was walking back to his vehicle at around 10.40am on 2 October 2018 when the enormous pane — measuring 85cm by 190cm — detached from the 26th floor of The Corniche on Albert Embankment and struck him, killing him on a walkway where members of the public pass the building.
The tower, at 23–24 Albert Embankment, stands on the Thames riverside in Vauxhall as part of one of central London’s most prestigious residential developments. Its distinctive curved profile was designed by the architects Foster + Partners.
Inner London Crown Court heard the fatal failure was not the first at the building. In August 2017, more than a year before Mr Ferris died, another window had fallen from The Corniche — yet the design of the facade was not substantially changed in response, the court was told.
The earlier incident meant the danger of a pane detaching from the tower was a foreseeable risk, prosecutors said — one the companies behind the scheme had ignored. Developer St James Group Ltd and facade contractor Lindner Prater were each convicted of failing to discharge a duty owed to the public under section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, which requires employers to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that people not in their employment are not exposed to risks to their health or safety.
St James Group was fined £1 million, while Lindner Prater was ordered to pay £300,000. Each company was also told to pay £125,000 towards the costs of the prosecution.
Health and safety offences dealt with in the Crown Court can attract unlimited fines, with sentencing guidelines linking the penalty to the offending organisation’s turnover as well as the seriousness of the failing and the level of culpability.
The prosecution was brought by the Health and Safety Executive following its investigation into Mr Ferris’s death. It follows other recent court action over fatal safety failures in the capital, including TfL being prosecuted over a fatal bus crash in Walthamstow.
The Health and Safety Executive is Britain’s national regulator for workplace health and safety. It investigates serious incidents and has the power to bring criminal prosecutions where it finds legal duties have been breached.
HSE principal inspector James Goldfinch said after the sentencing: “The reality is that anybody could have been walking past the building that day. Nobody’s life should be put in danger due to the clear failings of others.”
Mr Ferris’s widow, Rachel Ferris, said the family had been left devastated, and warned the tragedy could easily have claimed someone else. “What those companies did killed my husband,” she said. “Mick was just minding his own business. One minute there, one minute gone. The thought this could have happened to anybody is always with me. It could have been a child.”
The sentencing is the latest significant outcome from the capital’s courts, following the referral of Jerome Bailey’s murder conviction to the Court of Appeal over discrepancies in witness testimony.
It also follows the conviction of Metropolitan Police inspector Michael Richards for sexual assault, who was due to be sentenced on 25 September.
The court heard Mr Ferris had simply been going about his working day when the pane fell from the tower above. His widow said the family must now live with a loss that the court found could and should have been prevented.
