Legal action is being taken by the family whose elderly relative was killed in the Bow crane disaster three years ago when a 60ft rig toppled and crashed through the roof of their home.
June Harvey, who was 85, died when the crane came crashing down — it had only been erected the day before.
She was trapped in her upstairs bedroom in her home next to Watts Grove building site in Bromley-by-Bow where she lived with her niece Jacqueline and great nephew Sam Atkinson.
Sam was downstairs desperately trying to get through the rubble to reach her when the house in the Compton Close cul-de-sac was destroyed on July 8, 2020.
The companies involved at the site next to Compton Close, Swan Commercial Services, PGCS Partnership now in liquidation and Swan Housing Association, are cited by the family’s lawyer Helen Clifford for allegedly not making sure they were “properly rehoused” or treated for post-traumatic stress.
“June and her family should have been safe,” the lawyer told the East London Advertiser. “But they’ve been failed.
“We have issued proceedings to compel these companies to accept responsibility and to pay the family the compensation they are entitled to.”
Ms Clifford said it is “callous” that bereaved families face “years of legal nightmares” after the “unnecessary” death of a loved one.
June’s niece Jacqueline, now 61, and Sam, a 31-year-old qualified chef working in Canary Wharf, reportedly had to live in a hotel for months afterwards.
They still have no answers, three years on, to what caused the tragedy that killed June, whose inquest hasn’t happened yet. The police haven’t finished their investigation and nor has the Health and Safety Executive.
Sam said this week: “We feel disappointed and let down. We just want to know the cause which led to my great aunt’s death.”
He spoke tearfully in a speech after a minute’s silence for June at the site in 2021, the first anniversary of the tragedy: “We’re not living in a time where cranes should just fall out of the sky and kill people in their own homes.”
The tragedy highlights former prime minister David Cameron’s safety deregulation, say campaign groups that are supporting the family.
Poplar and Limehouse MP Apsana Begum raised the safety issue in Parliament with a Commons Motion in 2021 to halt building site deregulation.
The MP said this week: “June’s family and more than 90 other people remain deeply affected by this incident, with some still living in temporary accommodation.”
The Construction Safety Campaign, led by bereaved relatives of other crane tragedies, worries about construction industry deregulation brought in by Mr Cameron’s government.
They are calling for regulators to be given the resources for “rigorous enforcement” and for the police to be given the means to conclude the investigations.
Hilda Palmer, from Families Against Corporate Killers, insists: “Three years is far too long for a family to wait for justice.”
A spokesperson for Swan Housing told the paper: “We remain fully committed to supporting the authorities’ investigation into this tragic incident. However, we would not make any further comment at this stage as the process is ongoing.”
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