Manhole where boy, 10, died could have been bolted down 'for a fiver,' inquiry told

A Scots digger driver has told a Fatal Accident Inquiry (FAI) the lid of the manhole where a 10-year-old boy fell to his death could have been bolted down "for a fiver". Tragic Shea Ryan died on July 16 2020 after he climbed through an unsecured fence on a building site in Drumchapel, Glasgow, and fell 20ft down a manhole shaft.

The manhole, named MH22, had been built by construction firm ABV on a part of the Drumchapel site known as the Garscadden Burn Area (GBA), which was subsequntly handed to construction firm RJ McLeod on July 3 2020.

Plant operator Stuart Reid, who started working on the site on July 1 that year, told the FAI when he saw MH22 on his first day it was covered with an 80kg metal lid that could be pushed off by "two men."

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He said while this setup was "standard", it could have been made more secure if covered by a ballast bag weighing up to three-quarters of a tonne, a "road plate" - an 8ft by 4ft iron sheet weighing a quarter-tonne - or by being bolted in place.

When asked what it would take to bolt the lid down, he said: "You could probably do it for a fiver. I'm sure you could go to Screwfix and get stuff there to bolt it for a fiver."

Mr Reid said it would take about "half an hour" to drill holes in the concrete under the lid and bolt it in place. When asked how long it would take to put a road plate over the hole he said, "30 seconds".

He said such measures would helped stop unauthorised access to an unfinished manhole and reduce the risk of people falling in. He added on other work sites he had known the 80kg lids to get stolen "for scrap value".

Mr Reid said from starting work on the site on July 1 2020, he never saw a ballast bag on top of any manholes on the RJ McLeod site, including MH22. "There was no ballast bag on MH22," he told the inquiry.

When asked why this was, he said: "As far as I was led to believe, that manhole was already constructed by ABV. I don't know when they handed it over to RJ McLeod, but they took the ballast bag off it before we took access."

He said it would have been straightforward to get a new ballast bag for it because "you can put anything in it, stone or anything at all, just to give it weight". He was asked whether any RJ McLeod workers would have reason to access MH22 but said no, as "we were doing a completely different job".

The experienced plant operator was also very clear about how the industry would view a manhole being left open, telling the inquiry: "If somebody left it open they should be sacked."

Procurator fiscal Depute Nicola Gillespie took Mr Reid through a series of photographs of MH22 and asked Mr Reid to describe what he saw. He said he had never been down MH22 as he was not certified, but had been down other manholes during his career, and noted "if you like dark spaces you are OK, but if you don't, don't go in them".

He said the ladder affixed to the side of a vertical manhole shaft would be made of hard plastic, which could be slippery when wet. He described one the photos as showing the lid being "half open," and said "a man could fit inside" the resulting gap.

Some of the photos also showed water at the bottom of the manhole, and Ms Gillespie asked him whether that showed it was a "live manhole". He replied: "Yes, we call that a live manhole".

Ms Gillespie also asked him "If you go down there and slip or fall, there's a risk you fall into that water?"

"Yes," Mr Reid replied.

The 50-year-old also described first learning about the death of 10-year-old Shea on the morning of July 17, 2020. "When I arrived at work that morning there was a police presence and we were told there had been an accident," he said. "I had heard something in the car on the way to work in the morning, but it just said Drumchapel. It didn't say where it was."

Earlier the inquiry heard evidence from Stuart Laurence, who had been assistant site manager at the time. He was shown emails between staff at RJ McLeod AVB ahead of the handover on July 3, which contained photos showing that MH22 had a ballast bag on top of it shortly before the handover.

Mr Swanney asked Mr Laurence why no action had been taken to secure MH22 when RJ McLeod they took over the GBA, even though they had not constructed it. He pointed out that MH22 was the same kind of manhole as those RJ McLeod were going to construct on the site.

"They're pretty much the same but the policy for RJ McLeod-built manholes is 'we'll put a ballast bag on top and a fence around it if the lid's not secure'," he said. "But for MH22, which you knew was on the GBA site, and which you knew the lid was not secure, the policy was 'we'll leave it because it's not ours?"'

Mr Laurence replied: "It wasn't a policy. It wasn't considered." The inquiry continues.

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