A £30,000 fine was imposed this month on the Office of the Northern Ireland Chief Constable over the crushing to death of a man between police station gates. As we reported in the March 2007 Monthly Bulletin, the 28 year old man was killed by the sliding vehicle barriers at the base in his home town of Strabane, County Tyrone. Kieran Connolly had become trapped after chasing another man into the station on 17 March 2003. When a security guard opened the gates to rescue the man being chased, Connolly tried to escape back into the street after a control button was pressed that closed the shutters. However, despite the guard hitting the rubber safety edges they kept shutting and trapped him. He died later that day from massive injuries to his head and upper body.
The Health and Safety Executive for Northern Ireland (HSE NI) later discovered wiring that controlled the gates had been tampered with, although it was never established who by or when it took place. As a result it meant that the safety devices installed were bypassed. The Chief Constable's Office pleaded guilty to a single count of failing to take reasonable care of visitors under the workplace under the Health and Safety at Work (Northern Ireland) Order SI 1978/1039.
