Incident Report

Subject:                        Maryhill Factory Blast

Date of Email reporting Incident:   Fri 17/08/2007

Report Detail:

Prosecutor Angus Stewart gave a brief statement to the High Court in Glasgow, before the case was adjourned until August 27. A two-day hearing will be told the circumstances of the tragedy, before sentence is passed. The firms face a substantial fine. Five men and four women died when the factory collapsed after a gas explosion on May 11, 2004.
The charges admitted by the companies are that they failed to ensure their workers were not exposed to risks of personal injury and death from fire, explosion and other dangers arising out of corroded pipes and an escape of liquid petroleum gas which accumulated in the basement and exploded.

Mr Stewart told Judge Lord Hardy: "It's particularly poignant that individuals are killed and maimed in the course of their day's work." Outside court, a statement read out on behalf of a number of the families said: "No court case or penalty imposed by the courts will bring our families back. "It is now time for the concerns of the families to be taken into account and we continue to call for a wide reaching public inquiry that provides us with answers as to why these health and safety breaches occurred.."A joint company statement said: "There are no adequate words to express our feeling of deep sadness, and the heartfelt sympathies of all within the companies are with the families who lost a loved one, and those who were injured. Our company has at all times closely co-operated with the Crown and the HSE and attempted to prevent witnesses being inconvenienced by agreeing their evidence. "For the future, the company's commitment is to maintain employment and business relationships which provide the stability and opportunity necessary for us all to move forward. "

Shattered by a deadly blast
NINE standing stones in a memorial garden are a permanent reminder of lives lost and torn apart by the Maryhill factory blast.It happened at midday on May 11, 2004 and was Scotland's worst workplace accident since the Piper Alpha oil rig explosion in 1988. The four-storey plastics factory in Grovepark Street was reduced to rubble and rescuers likened it to an earthquake scene. Today, the factory's operators, ICL Plastics Ltd and ICL Tech Ltd, pleaded guilty at the High Court in Glasgow to contraventions of the Health and Safety at Work Act.The exact cause of the deadly explosion was petroleum gas igniting in a pipe that had been corroding over the years.Annette Doyle, 34, Thomas McAuley, 41, Ann Trench, 34, and Tracey McErlane, 27, all from Glasgow; Tim Smith, 31, of Johnstone, Peter Ferguson, 52, of Kilbarchan, Kenneth Murray, 45, from Paisley, all Renfrewshire; Margaret Brownlie, 49, of Strathaven, Lanarkshire; Stewart McColl, 60, from West Kilbride, Ayrshire, died in the blast.  Initially, 40 injured people were taken to hospital, seven of them having been pulled from the wreckage.

Teams of rescuers searched for three days and nights in the hope of finding survivors. Up to 200 firefighters were involved in the painstaking and dangerous rescue operation, using thermal imaging cameras and heat-seeking equipment as they worked through rubble to recover bodies and free trapped workers. One rescuer told how the crews searched through the tons of rubble and pulled it aside brick by brick. An RAF helicopter from Yorkshire flew to Glasgow to bring specialist dog teams and their handlers to the site. Experts from Grangemouth-based International Rescue, which specialises in earthquake disasters, used carbon dioxide detectors and specialist cameras. Eventually, after all hope of finding survivors was exhausted, the attention then turned to how the explosion could have happened and an intense and lengthy investigation was launched. Up to 140 officers were involved full-time in the police investigation. Between 60 and 80 detectives took statements from potential witnesses, while a further 60 officers were at the Maryhill site with Health and Safety Executive experts to recover physical evidence.

As well as carrying out door-to-door inquiries in the area around the plant, officers took statements from current and former employees at the firm's other plants in Dundee, Edinburgh and Newcastle. Documents from the factory were all over the site and police collected and logged every one. Information was fed into the Holmes computer system, which collates and analyses data. But the investigation and subsequent court proceedings dragged on. On the first anniversary of the explosion relatives of the dead, survivors and emergency services attended a service at a church near the site. Nine candles were lit. This year, relatives took comfort in being able to visit a dedicated area near the scene for the first time. A memorial garden, featuring a stone circle to remember the nine victims, was unveiled in May close to where the factory stood. Bereaved families set up their own support group and began demanding answers about the investigation. They called for a public inquiry - which they are still fighting for. Although families saw the criminal prosecution as a "major step forward", they are expected to highlight their fight for a public inquiry into the disaster in the coming weeks.

Groundbreaking investigation took almost two years
The investigation into the blast took thousands of man-hours and almost two years to complete. Even as rescuers were arriving at the scene, Health and Safety Executive investigators were starting to piece together what had happened. They knew they had a huge task to discover what caused Scotland's worst workplace disaster since Piper Alpha. For the first time the procurator fiscal launched a joint investigation with police and the HSE. Normally police or the HSE would investigate and send a report to the fiscal to decide whether charges should be brought. But, because of the scale of the incident, the number of fatalities, serious injuries and families affected, a joint investigation was needed. Catherine Dyer, area procurator fiscal for Glasgow, said: "It was fairly unique because it was the first time the police, Health and Safety Executive, Crown Office and procurator fiscal service have joined forces in a case like this." Thousands of tonnes of rubble had to be cleared from the site every day after all the bodies were recovered. Documents from the factory were strewn over the site and police were tasked with collecting and logging every one. HSE experts then began their intricate investigation. Evidence was then sent to and examined at the Health and Safety Laboratory in Buxton, Derbyshire. Eventually the trail led to a Liquid Petroleum Gas pipe which had corroded, leaking propane into the cellar of the factory and then igniting. Although the building was referred to as the Stockline plastics factory - due to the signs around the building - the factory was actually owned by ICL Plastics Ltd and the work that took place there was for ICL Tech Ltd. Stockline Plastics was the distribution company and did not manufacture anything. After thousands of painstaking hours of investigation, charges were brought against ICL Tech and ICL Plastics in February last year. It was decided the companies and not any individuals would face the charges. The charges, under the Health and Safety at Work Act, centred on ICL's failure to ensure their workers were not exposed to risks of personal injury and death from fire, explosion and other dangers.And companies were also accused of failing to carry out suitable and sufficient risk assessment in relation to their employees.