Scaffolding builder not guilty of worker death in Antwerp Pelikaanstraat collapse (Antwerp)
The Antwerp criminal court acquitted the scaffolding builder, the site manager and his superior on Thursday for the unintentional killing of worker Davy Verlooy and for the unintentional infliction of blows and injuries on his colleague. The defendants were fined 8,000 euros, half of which was postponed, for cleaning on welfare legislation. But those reduced were not causally related to the collapse of the scaffolding on which the victims stood.
Source: BELGA
On October 24, 2018, around 10 a.m., a twenty-meter high scaffold collapsed in Pelikaanstraat. It stood against the facade of a new hotel, right next to the Central Station in Antwerp. Two workers who were standing on the eleventh and thirteenth floors of the scaffolding tumbled down with them. Davy Verlooy was pulled lifeless from under the rubble. His colleague Peter VDS was probably seriously injured and was unable to work for 22 weeks.
At the time of the pouring, two pallets of stones, each weighing 1,150 kilos, had just been lowered and placed on the eleventh floor of the jetty. Shortly after placing the second palette, the rack collapsed. You can quickly ask yourself whether the scaffolding was stable enough to bear the maximum weight.
The investigation showed that the facade scaffolding was not used in accordance with the standard set-up and that different quantities had been used. In case of a deviation from the standard setup, a second strength and stability calculation must in principle be made to guarantee safety and stability, but that was not done here. Site supervisor Daniel D. and his superior Ardenio BR acknowledged that they had lost track of the second calculation note.
The court did not find it certain that the collapse of the scaffolding was caused by an instability, “in view of the large discrepancies between the reports and statements before us”. Besides the calculation of the scaffold stability, no further investigation was done into other factors that could have influenced the stability of the scaffold.
According to the court, the defendants had therefore only made a mistake with the calculation note, but the lack thereof was not causally related to the collapse of the scaffolding. They were automatically acquitted for accidental killing and for inflicting accidental blows and injuries. The damages claims of the civil parties were declared unfounded.