Cardiff electrocuted man's mentor 'would have stopped job'

Tom Owen, pictured (left) with his family, died while working in a trench with no supervisor watching over him

The mentor of an apprentice electrician electrocuted while working in a trench said he would not have allowed him to work in it.

Tom Owen, 21, was working for Western Power Distribution in Cardiff when the incident happened in January 2017.

Mentor Paul Williams said the hole he was working in was "too tight".

An inquest in Pontypridd heard Mr Owen had failed a test for working with live wires and was using the wrong safety equipment on the day he died.

Mr Williams said usually if Mr Owen was working on live wires, a supervisor would be "within arm's reach" and able to intervene if anything went wrong.

• Apprentice electrocuted working on cables, inquest hears

• Electrocuted apprentice's supervisors had 'no training'

However, the on-day supervisor Gareth Rhys was in a different trench 15 metres away and "out of sight", the inquest had previously heard.

Mr Williams said if he had seen that himself "the job would be stopped immediately".

He would have had Mr Owen working as a "safety man" or the supervisor working "up close and personal" with him.

While Mr Rhys was described as "experienced and competent", Mr Williams said his colleague Paul Rowlands usually took the lead on jobs.

Mr Williams also said on the day Mr Owen died, the risk assessment that had been carried out was not up to the usual standard and looked like a "box ticking exercise". He said the process had evolved since his death.

At the time, Mr Williams said there was no training within Western Power Distribution about how to be a mentor and no assessment of his mentoring skills, although that has now changed.

He also confirmed there had been no specific training in how to supervise apprentices on the job, with information passed on from worker to worker.

When he found out Mr Owen had failed an exam to work on live cables, Mr Williams said there was no official mechanism for letting other members of the team who might be supervising him know.

Lloyd Cannon, who was a fellow apprentice, told the inquest whenever he worked with Paul Rowlands or Gareth Rhys on live cables, they were always in the pit with him or at the side, while the team would discuss risk assessments collectively.

The inquest is continuing