West Bromwich roofer admits faking risk assessment after worker killed in fall
The boss of a man who fell to his death while working on a factory roof has admitted faking a risk assessment of the job after the tragedy.
David Jones told Wolverhampton Crown Court the document was fabricated with Raymond Brady, aged 70 and his 47-year-old son Mark Brady - who had employed him - just hours after the incident.
Stephen Wallace, aged 47, who worked for Jones, plunged through a skylight he was fixing and fell eight metres to the concrete floor at Bromford Iron and Steel in West Bromwich on September 10 2009. He died in hospital the next morning.
Jones alleged: "Ray Brady arrived at the site after it had happened, told me we needed to sort out risk assessment and method statements and asked me to follow him to his office in Wednesfield.
"He said words to the effect that they should have been in place and we might be in trouble with the law. We fabricated the whole thing after the event for the benefit of both him and me.
"I don't know if Mark Brady was at the site that day but he was at the office when we arrived. He was on the computer and got the document from the Health and Safety website. He asked me a few questions which I answered while he filled it in. Then I signed it. I didn't get a copy."
He has admitted attempting to pervert the course of justice, the jury was told.
Raymond Brady handed the completed documents - dated August 18, almost a month earlier - to an official from the Health and Safety Executive at the site of the fall the following day, alleged Jones.
Jones admitted suggesting his daughter Rebecca tell officials she had filled in the paperwork because she did his secretarial work.
He threw away the lap top on which it had allegedly been prepared so police could not analyse the device. He explained: "They would have found out the documents were not on it. I was covering my tracks."
Mr Brian Dean, defending, maintained the Bradys had not signed a tenancy agreement to rent part of the property and were merely 'visitors' to the site when disaster struck.
But Mr Adam Budworth, prosecuting, claimed: "They deliberately sought to fool the authorities so as to deflect or diminish their criminal responsibility and civil liability."
The court was told they were not in breach of any health and safety legislation even though they may have believed they would get into trouble for negligence at the time.
Wheelchair-bound Raymond Brady, of Warwick Road, Solihull, has advanced Parkinson's disease and has been declared unfit to plead but will still stand trial alongside his son.
Mark Brady, of Temple Road, Dorridge, Solihull, denies attempting to pervert the course of justice between September 10 and 11, 2009. The trial continues.
