‘I feel as though they killed my son and the government is covering up for them. It is one big cover up,’ Linda Whelan from County Durham told News Line yesterday.
Linda, whose son Craig was aged 23 when he died in an explosion in a chimney he was working to demolish, was on a lobby of parliament organised by FACK (Families Against Corporate Killers).
She told how her son had been sent back inside the chimney even though three managers of the company had received an email informing them that the men should not be sent back because of flammable chemicals within the chimney walls. ‘They got a small fine each,’ said Linda.
Hilda Palmer from FACK said: ‘Today is the second reading of the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill.
‘The bill is completely inadequate. It doesn’t hold companies fully to account for killing people by gross negligence.
‘We are here to protest at the lack of justice it gives to the families of those who have been killed, also it doesn’t act as a deterrent to employers, some of whom are serial killers.’
She added: ‘Trade unions Amicus, the TGWU, UCATT and the GMB have been very active in their campaigns for Corporate Killing legislation, but unfortunately they haven’t made it clear that this bill is fundamentally flawed.’
UCATT Regional Organiser Chris Tiff said: ‘The construction industry is killing construction workers at the rate of two a week.
‘It’s a disgrace. It’s the only industry in the whole of the UK that kills its own workers.
‘UCATT has called on the government to pass a corporate manslaughter bill with teeth. We want directors to be put in prison.’
Linzi Herbertson said: ‘I lost my husband in 1998. He fell from scaffolding in a factory in Oldham.
‘When the company ended up with a £9,000 fine I felt I’d been punished twice. I’d already lost my husband and then I felt bereft again by the paltry measly fine.
‘Today they are just going to ignore us again. It’s all hypocrisy. They are all for the businessmen, not the workers. It’s just more cover up.’
