Two British company directors have denied charges relating to the deaths of four Gambians and a Senegalese national at a recycling plant in Birmingham.
Four Gambians, Almamo Jammeh, Bangally Dukureh, Saibo Sillah, Mahamadou Jagana, and one Senegalese, Ousmane Diaby, were fatally crushed by a collapsing wall, smothering them in hundreds of tonnes of metal ingots at Hawkeswood Metal Recycling’s site in Nechells, Birmingham on 7 July 2016. A sixth man suffered severe injuries.
The two directors, plus two recycling firms, have been charged with health and safety offenses.
Appearing before Birmingham Crown Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday, Wayne Hawkeswood and Graham Woodhouse appeared at Birmingham Court on Tuesday to deny charges against them. The companies they worked for when the wall collapsed on the African nationals, ENSCO 10101, formerly Shredmet, and its predecessor Hawkeswood Metal Recycling are also being prosecuted.
Mr. Hawkeswood, 50, of Riverside Works in Nechells, pleaded not guilty to four breaches of the 1974 Health and Safety at Work Act, including two which allege an “offense was committed with your consent or connivance or was attributable to your neglect.”
Graham Woodhouse, 54, also of Riverside Works, denied four offenses related to his duties as an employer on or about 7 July 2016.
Both of the same address companies indicated not guilty pleas to two charges each through their lawyers at the hearing.
A trial has been listed for 17 October 2022 and is expected to last for up to eight weeks.
[…] The Chronicle […]