Wall collapse directors jailed for deaths of five men in Birmingham

Wayne Hawkeswood (right) and Graham Woodhouse (centre) had denied health and safety breaches

Two directors of a Birmingham metal recycling firm have been jailed after five men died when a 45-tonne wall fell on them.

Wayne Hawkeswood and Graham Woodhouse denied risking workers' safety when the wall overloaded with 263 tonnes of briquettes collapsed at Shredmet.

Both men were jailed for nine months and their firms fined £1.6m in total.

After sentencing, health and safety investigators said the men lost their lives in the most appalling way.

Almamo Jammeh, 45, Ousmane Diaby, 39, Bangally Dukureh, 55, Saibo Sillah, 42, and Mahamadou Jagana, 49, died as they cleared a bay at the recycling plant in Nechells when a 3.6m (11ft 10in) adjacent wall collapsed, smothering them in hundreds of tonnes of metal.

The workers clockwise from top left: Mahamadou Jagana, Almamo Jammeh, Saibo Sillah, Bangally Dukureh and Ousmane Diaby died in 2016

In a statement after sentencing at Birmingham Crown Court, the families said they were relieved the directors had been jailed and they miss the men "every single day".

"On the day they died we made each of them a promise that we would secure justice.

"It has been a long and difficult road to get to this point. But we can now rest easier as our promise has been kept."

Investigators from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), who brought the prosecution, described the scene in July 2016 as one of the worst they had encountered.

The wall was so close to toppling a gust of wind could have brought it down, Birmingham Crown Court heard during the men's trial last November.

Investigators found poor safety records were kept and discovered other leaning or unstable walls at the site.

• After the wall fell

• Directors guilty of safety breaches

• Survivor 'traumatised' by what he saw

A neighbouring company also photographed walls leaning on to its site from the Shredmet premises and raised concerns with the company at least two years before the men died.

Hawkeswood and Woodhouse and their two companies Shredmet, now known as ENSCO101, and Hawkeswood Metal Recycling (HMR) were convicted of 12 counts under the Health and Safety at Work Act after a trial which lasted six weeks.

The five men were placed into a working environment that was fundamentally unsafe., the HSE said

HMR was fined £1m and Ensco £600,000, and his honour Mr Justice Sweeting also made an order that £775,000 must be paid in prosecution costs.

Speaking after sentencing on Monday, principal inspector Amy Kalay said: "I hope the families and friends of the men who died find some comfort in today's sentencing.

"The investigation into this incident was long and complex. Five men lost their lives in the most appalling of circumstances. Their deaths should not have happened. They went to work to earn a wage; that cost them their lives.

"These five men were placed into a working environment that was fundamentally unsafe. The failings of the companies and individuals brought to justice today were responsible for this tragedy."

The men - four from The Gambia and one from Senegal - had previously been working in Spain but came to the UK after finding it difficult to find employment on the continent.

They were hired through an agency to work at Shredmet, a firm that had a multi-million pound turnover, and helped clear and sort metals.

Relatives of the men were joined by friends at the protest outside Shredmet in Nechells in 2020

A sixth worker, Tombong Conteh, survived the collapse but suffered a broken leg.

Jurors at the men's inquest into their deaths in November 2018, found the the risk of the wall falling was described by the HSE as "foreseeable" and returned an accidental death verdict.

The men's families have been critical of the delays in the case and staged a rally outside the scrapyard on the fourth anniversary the deaths.

They have described Shredmet and Hawkeswood Metal Recycling's failures as "scandalous and inexcusable".