Bin tragedy driver was suspended
THE driver of a bin lorry which crashed killing six people was facing disciplinary action by his previous employer when he started working for Glasgow City Council, a fatal accident inquiry has heard.
Harry Clarke had received a final written warning about his poor attendance record because of ill health – including a bout of vertigo – while driving buses for First Bus and had been ordered to attend a disciplinary meeting on a separate issue in December 2010.
But the inquiry was told that he failed to turn up for the hearing, and by early January 2011, he had started a new job with the council as a school bus driver for children with special needs.
Details of his application form were read to the inquiry, in which Mr Clarke stated he was ‘fit’ and ‘reliable’ and would be
‘an asset’ to the council. He later successfully transferred to a job as a refuse lorry driver, although a lawyer acting for one of the victims’ families suggested that if Mr Clarke’s disciplinary record and health problems had been provided with his job application he would have presented ‘a deeply unattractive candidate for Glasgow City Council’.
Mr Clarke was driving the council truck in the city centre on December 22 last year when it went out of control and mounted a pavement packed with Christmas shoppers. Witnesses reported that he appeared to lose consciousness at the wheel.
Earlier this week, the inquiry at Glasgow Sheriff Court was told that the victims of the tragedy would still be alive if the 58year-old had not lied repeatedly about his history of fainting attacks while at work.
Documents produced previously at the inquiry showed that Mr Clarke had suffered a ‘ blackout’ in April 2010 while behind the wheel of a First Bus vehicle and that he failed to declare his health problems to superiors on three separate occasions after moving to the council.
Erin McQuade, 18, and her grandparents Jack Sweeney, 68, and Lorraine Sweeney, 69, from Dumbarton were struck and killed by the runaway vehicle after Mr Clarke collapsed at the wheel as it travelled along Queen Street.
Stephenie Tait, 29, and Jacqueline Morton, 51, both from Glasgow, and Gillian Ewing, 52, from Edinburgh, also died while ten others were injured. Yesterday, solicitor Advocate Ronald Conway, representing the family of Miss Tait, told the inquiry that Mr Clarke was given a formal written warning in the autumn of 2009 over absences from work and had also been given other warnings that year.
These included a two-week absence in August 2009 following an episode of vertigo and a ten-day absence for a knee condition. The driver appealed against the written formal warning but this was rejected.
Details of Mr Clarke’s employment record from his time with First Bus were shown to Douglas Gellan, a cleansing services waste manager for Glasgow City Council, who was Mr Clarke’s boss.
The First Bus documents showed that on December 29, 2010, Mr Clarke received a letter advising him he was suspended from duty for being ‘ahead of time’ – arriving at a bus stop before announced time – and he was required to attend a hearing on December 31, 2010.
The inquiry was told that Mr Clarke failed to attend the hearing and, instead, handed in his notice. He started working for Glasgow City Council on January 5, 2011. It later transpired that he had actually filled out the application form for the council job in July 2010.
Cross-examining Mr Gellan on the seventh day of the inquiry, Mr Conway said that no reference to the First Bus suspension nor any reference to Mr Clarke receiving a final written warning were found in his council employment record.
Mr Gellan said that it is up to the candidate to decide which two previous employers he names as referees. The lawyer said: ‘ It really comes down to this – someone has blundered.
‘Either someone in First Bus has signally failed in their duty to members of the public or someone at Glasgow City Council has carried out a grossly incompetent recruit- ment process. That’s the only two alternatives here.’
‘It seems to be, yes,’ replied Mr Gellan. He added that he would have ‘hoped’ that the council had made the appropriate inquiries but did not know for sure as he was not involved in recruitment.
Mr Conway suggested that if he had known about the final formal warning it would have acted as a ‘red flag’. Mr Gellan agreed.
Describing Mr Clarke as a ‘deeply unattractive candidate for Glasgow City Council’, Mr Conway suggested that the local authority would never have employed him as a driver if it had known about his absence record and the warnings.
He said: ‘There’s not the remotest chance that you would have let this man behind the wheel of a large vehicle.’
Mr Gellan replied: ‘It’s a case of not just me determining if he is fit to drive the vehicle. There’s lots of evidence here. We would have taken it into account when making that decision.’
Mr Conway asked: ‘ Did you go home last night, and after all the evidence you heard, ask yourself: “How on earth did we get this man?”’ Mr Gellan said: ‘ Yes I sat and thought about it.’
In earlier evidence it was heard that Mr Clarke had both his LGV (Large Goods Vehicle) and normal driving licences returned to him in
April this year but they were revoked again in June.
The inquiry also heard that Glasgow City Council relied on out-ofdate safety guidance to carry out a risk assessment of the bin lorry crash route.
Mark Stewart, QC, who is representing the families of three crash victims, said that the British Standard mark applied to the risk assessment of the route taken by the lorry was ‘superseded’ in 2008. He said a ‘simple internet search’ threw up the new information. Asked if he knew that the standard had been withdrawn, Mr Gellan admitted that he did not.
When Sheriff John Beckett, QC, asked Mr Stewart whether the new standard was of a higher, lower or identical level of rigour, the lawyer replied that was not relevant.
Mr Stewart said: ‘If he doesn’t know that the standard he is applying is the standard to be applied then that can be categorised as a lack of care.’
The inquiry heard that there was no ‘seasonal risk assessment’ carried out for the bin lorry route in the area around Christmas despite the additional numbers of pedestrians in the city centre at that time.
During re-examination by solicitor general Lesley Thomson, QC, she suggested to Mr Gellan ‘if that had been taken into account’ the drivers may have been told not to use the roads that lead to George Square. She put it to him: ‘If that had been done, that [bin lorry] would not have been on that street at that time.’ He replied: ‘Yes.’
Later, the inquiry was shown a council application form filled in by Mr Clarke in July 2010 for the post of driving a 22- seat minibus for schoolchildren with special needs to and from school.
It showed that his then employer was First Glasgow and gave his pre- vious employment as an LGV driver with haulage form DHL between 2000 and 2008 before he was made redundant from that job. Before that, he worked as a general haulage worker for Hays between 1997 and 2000 but l eft f or ‘ better propects’.
In the application he wrote: ‘I have been driving LGV/PSV vehicles for the past 33 years with no serious endorsements.
‘I have worked driving buses in Glasgow ten of those. I am fit, good at working with members of the public and very reliable.’
Mr Clarke also said he had three penalty points on his licence which dated back to 2008. He added: ‘I hope you will consider me for an interview as I would be an asset to your department at 53 years of age.’
On another part of the application he wrote: ‘I would be as comfortable as the passengers on the bus.’
He declared that he did not con-
‘Someone has blundered’
sider himself to have a disability and signed a declaration on the form noting that ‘false information or omissions may lead to dismissal’.
Earlier, the inquiry heard that no revised route risk assessment for bin lorries was done to take into account a festive fair taking place in George Square in December.
Mr Stewart, who is representing the families of Mr and Mrs Sweeney and Miss McQuade, asked Mr Gellan: ‘In relation to George Square, no revised route risk assessment was done by your department to take into account that festival in December last year?’
Mr Gellan replied: ‘Not for more people being in George Square at that time. We don’t do route risk assessments to take account of more people in George Square.’
He said: ‘With regards to the festival itself, there was not a route risk assessment.’
The Crown Office has already concluded that there will be no criminal prosecution over the crash, with senior lawyers deeming it a ‘tragic accident’.
The inquiry continues.