ABSTRACT
The death of Sydney Rouse clearly illustrates the difficulties addressed thus far in this chapter and highlights the importance of recognising the inter-relationship between the HSE investigation, the inquest and the manslaughter investigation or prosecution. Sydney Rouse was an experienced pipe-fitter who, on the 23rd August 1988, caught the ‘entire blast of a short circuit, receiving 80% full thickness burns, as his colleague’s pneumatic drill hit an electric cable’. He died 10 days later in University College Hospital after the failure of skin transplant treatment (Bergman, 1991, p 7). The police arrived at the scene and completed their investigation within seven minutes. Although statements were taken from the ganger, none was taken from the company site agent or district supervisor. The inquest, in December 1988, returned a verdict of accidental death, according to Bergman (1991, p 8) as a result of a ‘defective and ineffectual inquest’. The inquest heard that the workers were provided with a map but not a mains map, which would have shown cables going directly into houses in the street. The company ‘failed to provide them with adequate maps and tools to avoid the risk of serious injury when working on the London system, which was not fused’ (Bergman, 1991, p 8). Evidence was heard that supported the creation of a serious and obvious risk of death, when Sydney Rouse started digging up the road under those circumstances; that the company officials knew or ought to have known that there was such a risk; and that the company failed in its duties to avert such a risk (Bergman, 1991, p 8).
