ABSTRACT
On 12 November, Lord Cullen’s 800-page report, An Inquiry into the Piper Alpha Disaster (Cullen, 1990) was published. This followed a public inquiry lasting thirteen months, between January 1989 and February 1990, during which evidence from 260 witnesses amounting to six million words was considered. At the outset of the inquiry Lord Cullen had explicitly rejected the reported comment of one trade union official who had claimed its remit would be confined to ‘the narrow technical question of whether a valve worked or did not work’. Cullen reiterated what he had said at the preliminary hearing:
On that occasion, I pointed out that my remit was wide, especially in regard to the opportunity which I have to make observations and recommendations with a view to the preservation of life and the avoidance of similar accidents in the future. I said, of course, that my remit does not entitle me to embark on a roving excursion into every aspect of safety at work in the North Sea or into every grievance, however sincere or well founded, that is entertained. But I went on to say that, when considering whether a particular line of evidence should be explored, whoever raises it, the question for me will be whether there is any tenable connection between that line of evidence and the events that occurred. (1990: Ch. 2.15)
