16th February 2011, 04:08 PM
This is clearly a very sad case. These are two extracts from the company director's testimony taken from various articles on Google News.
Quote: In a DVD police interview shown to the jury at Winchester Crown Court, Mr Eaton said he had been using the same procedures to dig trial pits since 1971 and he admitted he had overall responsibility for the health and safety of his staff.
He said his health and safety booklet had been written in 1992 and he had been "threatening" to update it but had never found the time.
The booklet said that staff should not enter unsupported pits deeper than 1.2 metres, but Mr Eaton said this did not apply to geologists like Mr Wright or himself, who had both built up a practical knowledge of soil and the dangers. He said he had inspected 7,000 pits during his career and Mr Wright 600 to 700.
Quote: In the statement, Mr Eaton said no-one should ever enter a pit without someone being present above ground and that Mr Wright, who he described as competent and experienced and "not fresh from university", knew this.
He described how one pit had collapsed on the site that day during the work and he had said to Mr Wright: "That's it. Enough is enough. All intrusive work is over for the day."
"There was absolutely no need for Alex to go into trial pit five. I do not know why he did what he did," he said. "There is no way he would have thought I would have expected him to re-enter the pit. I was astonished that Alex was in any of the trial pits."