Home / Crime and Justice / £1m Fine After Penthouse Glass Kills Driver
£1m Fine After Penthouse Glass Kills Driver
24 Sep
Summary
- A luxury penthouse window weighing 130kg fell 26 storeys, killing a coach driver.
- The developer St James Group Ltd was fined £1m for ignoring foreseeable risks.
- A similar window fell the previous year, but lessons were not learned.
A property developer has been fined £1 million after a catastrophic failure led to a fatal accident. On October 2, 2018, a 130kg window plummeted 26 storeys from a luxury penthouse in Vauxhall, south London, striking and killing coach driver Mick Ferris. His wife highlighted that the tragedy was preventable, particularly noting a previous window fall from the same development in August 2017, from which crucial safety lessons were not implemented.
St James Group Ltd, the developer, received the substantial £1m fine, while façade contractor Lindner Prater was fined £300,000. Both were found guilty of disregarding foreseeable risks. The court heard that the developer should have ensured the window's critical safety components were properly secured. Lindner Prater was also criticized for not adequately completing and documenting its risk assessment processes. The sentencing judge emphasized that a previous incident, which occurred just a year prior, should have prompted more robust safety measures.
