Developer fined £1m after window kills coach driver

Property developer St James Group Ltd has been fined £1m after a window fell from a luxury riverside penthouse in south London, killing coach driver Mick Ferris. The 130kg pane of glass fell 26 storeys from The Corniche development in Vauxhall on 2 October 2018.

Mr Ferris, 53, was struck by the falling glass as he returned to his coach on Albert Embankment. His wife, Rachel Ferris, told the sentencing hearing at Inner London Crown Court that her husband's death could have been prevented. She highlighted that a window had fallen from the same building in August 2017, but the design was not significantly altered afterwards.

Contractor also fined

Specialist façade contractor Lindner Prater was also fined £300,000. Both St James Group Ltd and Lindner Prater were found guilty of disregarding risks that could have been anticipated. Luxury architecture firm Foster + Partners and engineering consultants Wintech Ltd were found not guilty of the same charge.

Judge Boyle stated that St James Group Ltd should have been more diligent in ensuring the window's critical safety components were correctly installed. The judge also noted that Lindner Prater should have taken further steps to complete and document its risk assessment process.

In addition to their fines, both St James Group Ltd and Lindner Prater were ordered to pay £125,000 each in costs.

HSE principal inspector James Goldfinch commented that the failure to learn from a near-miss incident the previous year made the fatal event particularly unacceptable. He stated that one window falling was extraordinary, but a second occurrence was criminal.

Mrs Ferris described her husband's death as sudden and unexpected. She told the court that if different actions had been taken, their lives would not have been irrevocably changed. She added that the actions of the companies involved led to her husband's death and expressed concern that anyone could have been a victim.

The court heard that 400 people attended Mr Ferris's funeral, and he is deeply missed. Television host James Corden paid tribute to Mr Ferris on social media, describing his death as sudden and urging people to express their love to their families.