Queen Mary 2 defendants get suspended sentences

Andrew Spurrier, Paris - Thursday 2 July 2009

A FRENCH appeal court has imposed suspended prison sentences on four individual defendants accused of responsibility for the collapse of a shipyard walkway on the Queen Mary 2 in November 2003 in which 16 people died and 30 were injured.

The four, two from the Chantiers de l'Atlantique shipyard and two from its sub-contractor Endel, had been acquitted at the initial criminal court hearing in Saint Nazaire in February 2008 on the grounds that any offences they had committed had been unintentional.

The Rennes appeal court, which was pronouncing judgment following a hearing in March and April, reversed this judgment, however, sentencing them to suspended prison sentences ranging from 18 months to two years for causing accidental death and injury.

It did not follow completely, however, the recommendations of the prosecutor, who had called for suspended prison sentences for seven of the eight individual defendants who had been acquitted in the original trial.

The appeal court also stiffened the fines against Chantiers de l'Atlantique and Endel, sentencing them to maximum €225,000 ($315,044) fines, compared to the €177,500 imposed by the lower court.

In rendering its judgment, it accused the shipyard of having fostered a mode of organisation and operation which favoured productivity at the expense of professional quality and of having diluted to an extreme degree its responsibility for health and safety via a cascading system of delegation.

Regarding Suez group subsidiary Endel, it said that the company had been more interested in making savings than guaranteeing the quality of its work and had been lacking in a real policy of recruitment and training for its executives.

The judgment was welcomed by the head of the association of victims of the accident which had been furious over the original decision to acquit all eight individual defendants in the case.

The dead and injured were among some 50 cleaners and invited visitors who were on the walkway which gave access to the nearly completed cruise ship from the side of the drydock in which was situated.

When the walkway unexpectedly collapsed, many of those on it fell 18 m to the bottom of the drydock.

Steve Gordon
http://www.offshoreinjuries.com