FIRMS FINED £1.3M AFTER MAN KILLED BY FALLING WINDOW IN LONDON

St James Group Ltd and Lindner Prater have been fined a combined £1.3m following the death of coach driver Mick Ferris, who was killed when a window pane fell from the Corniche development in Vauxhall, London. Ferris, 53, was crushed on 2 October 2018 as he returned to his coach, when the 130kg pane, measuring roughly 85cm by 190cm, fell around 90 metres from the 26th storey of the building. Inner London Crown Court fined property developer St James Group Ltd £1m and specialist facade contractor Lindner Prater £300,000 at a sentencing hearing on Thursday, with both companies also ordered to pay costs of £125,000 each. In August, the two firms were convicted under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 of failing to discharge a duty of care, after the court found they had ignored foreseeable risks.

The court heard that a window panel had previously fallen from the same development in August 2017, and that the design had not been significantly changed afterwards. The Corniche sits on Albert Embankment beside the Thames, with views over the Houses of Parliament, and includes a gym, pool and spa. Flats in the building have been listed for sale at £3m. Ferris worked as a driver for Clarkes of London.

Ferris's widow, Rachel, told the court his death "could have happened to anybody" and "could have been prevented". In a statement read out in court, she said that if anyone at the companies had asked "can't we do this better?", it would have changed their lives, and said the firms' actions killed her husband. She described him as having been "just minding his own business" before the pane struck him.