Bridge inquest opens - at last.

Byline: By Craig Hillsley

Two North workmen were thrown 80ft to their deaths from a motorway bridge after wind blew their gantry, a health and safety inspector told an inquest jury yesterday.

The men who died - Paul Stewart, 23, from Westbourne Avenue, Walker, Newcastle, Andrew Rodgers, 40, from Middlesbrough, and two colleagues - were working on the gantry suspended under a bridge on the M5 when they plunged to the ground.

An inquest into their deaths opened in Bristol yesterday and the jury heard how the wind blew the gantry along the beams under the bridge, detaching one end, so the platform was hanging down.

The brakes on the gantry were not enough to stop it being blown along the beam and all four, including Ronald Hill, 38, from Glasgow, and Jeffrey Williams, 42, from Newport, died from multiple injuries.

They were working on the Avonmouth M5 motorway bridge near Bristol in September 1999.

Health and safety inspector Roger Jones showed the eight-member jury a computer-generated simulation of what had happened to the gantry, saying the men "did nothing wrong".

But he told them that the brakes that were "not reliable enough" to stop the gantry, with nothing to stop the trolleys from running off the end of the runway beams. He said there had been training given, but some employees had claimed they had not received that and some were unaware of wind-speed risks.

Mr Jones said later there were no "endstops" on the beams which would have prevented the gantry falling off and added that the operating manual for moving gantries was "confusing" and made no mention of the need for endstops.

In a statement read out to the jury, Health and Safety Executive inspector Peter Swift said that "beam clamps", designed for lifting, were used as brakes for the gantry. He said they were "inherently unsuitable as a restraint".

Mr Swift said beam clamps would not stop the gantry if there was a wind speed of 24mph, and added there were gusts that day of more than 30mph.

Peter Mercer, a freelance rigger from Sheffield, told coroner Brian Whitehouse he had been contracted in to audit the gantries the week before the accident.

On September 1, 1999, he inspected the gantry involved in the disaster. He told the jury: "I wouldn't have worked on it. I was surprised to see beam clamps in use. They were being used as a sort of safety system, but they should only be used as a back-up to the main system."

He said four "turfers", which are used to move and restrain the gantry, should have been employed on the platform, but only one was being used.

The death of father-of-two Mr Stewart left his two sons, Rhys, seven, and Jamie, three, to be brought up alone by their mother, Tricia Boyd. He was working for what was then known as Kvaerner Cleveland Bridge Ltd when the accident happened.

In November 2001, the two companies in charge of the men's safety were fined pounds 500,000 at Bristol Crown Court.

Yarm Road Ltd, formerly known as Kvaerner Cleveland Bridge Ltd, and Costain Ltd both pleaded guilty to breaches of health and safety law.

The families were awarded a total of pounds 1.3m in compensation from Kvaerner Cleveland Bridge Ltd, Costain Ltd and Technitube Ltd after further legal proceedings by trade union the GMB.

The decision to finally hold the inquest follows legal proceedings by Paul's father, George, after Paul Forrest, coroner for the County of Avon, decided last December not to hold one, because the Health and Safety Executive had already prosecuted the companies involved.

The judicial proceedings brought by Mr Stewart were brought to an end after a consent order was sealed in the High Court Justice Queen's Bench Division.

The hearing, at The Guildhall, Bristol, is due to resume today and is expected to last seven days.