'Faulty railings at Preston property led to Burnley man's death'

10:42pm Thursday 15th May 2008

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A FORMER Burnley councillor plunged to his death after leaning back on 'unsafe' railings which had been reported as faulty, an inquest heard.

Gas fitter Andrew Rae, 55, had been working for Preston City Council when he was asked to go to a property in St John's Street in the city, to carry out boiler repairs, the coroner's court hearing was told.

But as he leaned back on railings, after knocking on the maisonette's first floor front door, they gave way and he fell on to the concrete paving stones below, the Preston court heard.

Mr Rae, of Wellfield Drive, Ightenhill, Burnley, was taken to the Royal Preston Hospital following the incident, on January 31 last year, with injuries including skull fractures and broken ribs, but died shortly afterwards.

The inquest heard that cash had been set aside to carry out repairs on the maisonettes, owned by Community Gateway housing association on behalf of the city council. The works included repairs to the balconies and was due to be carried out in April 2007.

Det Chief Insp Andrew Gilbert, of Preston police, told the hearing that police were not informed of the Mr Rae's fall until three-and-a-half hours later.

He was initially concerned that repairs had already been started by council workmen, when he arrived on the scene just after 4pm.

But as photos of the railings, and their condition, had been taken by Community Gateway officials before the repairs were conducted, he believed that no vital evidence had been lost as a result.

DCI Gilbert said he launched an initial manslaughter and gross negligence investigation into Mr Rae's death and his officers conducted house-to-house inquiries on the estate about the state of the balconies and whether any repairs had been carried out recently.

But the detective said that the only records of any complaints regarding St John's Street related to 1994 and 1995 - and he could find no one who would come forward and inform him of any subsequent complaints to the city council or Community Gateway.

Because there was no evidence of foul play, he passed on the investigation to his colleague Ian Phillips, from the Health and Safety Executive.

Resident Peter Farish, who lived at the property, told the hearing the condition of the balcony was "really, really bad".

He said: "It was one of the worst balconies I have seen anywhere."

Mr Farish and neighbour Steven Friel both told the inquest how they had tried to carry out running repairs to the railings, when they had become loose or dislodged. Both said they had reported problems to the authorities.

He described repairs carried out to the balcony as a "joke", as a workman had fixed the problem by nailing one of the slats in place.

The nail had then been bent back to hold the railing in place, he said.

"If I had known the repairs were going to be such a joke I would have done them myself," said Mr Farish, who refused to allow his children to play on the balcony when they visited.

He also said that within an hour or two of Mr Rae's fall, the estate was filled with workmen carrying out repairs to other balconies, replacing worn-out railings with boarding.

Ian Phillips, a health and safety executive inspector, said he could find no programme of preventative maintenance which had been carried out on the properties either by Preston City Council or Community Gateway.

Logs were kept of work which was going to be carried out on properties by Community Gateway but there were no records of complaints.

The inquest heard that around £1,000,000 had been spent on balcony improvements on council housing stock.

Civil engineer Stuart Eddy, who inspected the handrails and wooden slats from outside the St Thomas Street property, said there were clear signs of decay and degradation.

The rail - around 4.9m in length, was held on by only eight screws, said Mr Eddy, who described the arrangements he made on the balconies to prevent the falls as inadequate.

He said that Mr Rae would have reasonably expected that the railings should have been able to withstand a reasonable load' when he leaned on them.

Mr Eddy said that the design of the railing was "flawed" and anyone inspecting the structure that had seen it was "not up to standard."

But Diane Bellington, chief executive of Community Gateway, said: "I am absolutely confident that we log every single call which we receive."

The inquest, before Preston and West Lancashire deputy coroner Nicola Mundy, sitting with an 11-strong jury, is expected to resume today (Friday).

Mr Rae was a councillor for Brunshaw ward from 1998 to 2002 and was married to Angela, a teaching assistant at a Blackburn school.