Graham Woodhouse tells court he is still devastated after five died after wall collapse at site in Birmingham

The operations manager of a metal recycling plant where five men were crushed to death by a collapsed wall has said he is “stunned and perplexed” by how the accident could have happened.

Almamo Jammeh, 45, Ousmane Diaby, 39, Bangally Dukureh, 55, Saibo Sillah, 42, and Muhamadou Jagana, 49, were killed when a 15ft (4.6-metre) wall made of interlocking concrete blocks collapsed as they were clearing out a storage bay at the Hawkeswood Metal Recycling site in Birmingham in July 2016.

An inquest at Birmingham coroner’s court previously heard how the men had to be identified by fingerprints after suffering “devastating blunt-force injuries” when the wall and 263 tonnes of metal ingots in an adjacent bay fell on to them.

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In a statement read to the jury on Tuesday, Graham Woodhouse, operations manager at the site and a director of the company, said he was still devastated about what had happened that day.

“To this day I remain completely stunned and perplexed that the bay wall collapsed,” he said. “If the company had any indication that the bay wall was unstable it never would have allowed for it to stand. I cannot comprehend how the bay wall collapsed.”

The men, four of whom were originally from the Gambia and one from Senegal, had travelled to the UK from Spain in search of a better life. They were employed through an agency called Goldline Recruitment to work as recycling operatives at the plant.

In a statement read to the jury by the coroner in a previous hearing, Awa Dibba, the wife of Jammeh, said: “[Almamo]’s death has had a terrible effect on me and the family. I was excited to tell my parents that I was going to England to start a new life. However, when I arrived I had to tell them that my husband had died.”

Foday Sillah, a cousin of Saibo Sillah, said he had been working several jobs to allow him to be reunited with his wife and young family who were still in the Gambia. He said he was “determined to bring them to England so he could provide them with the sort of education that he had never had”.

In their statements to the court, Woodhouse and Wayne Hawkeswood, the company’s managing director, said they employed a health and safety adviser, Michael White, to carry out monthly inspections of the site.

“During site visits Michael was encouraged to walk freely around the site and highlight any potential health and safety issues he observed,” said Woodhouse. “His visits varied in length but were usually a couple of hours. Michael had unfettered access to the whole yard including the storage area and bays.”

White denied that he had visited the site every month, saying he had visited only three times in the 12 months running up to the accident, for a total of about 12 hours.

“At no time do I recall seeing quantities of scrap material or any block walls,” he said in a statement. “In relation to this wall, I have no knowledge of how long it had been there, who constructed the wall and what its purpose was. I have therefore not requested or conducted any risk assessment concerning the cleaning out of bays at this particular location.”

White said he first became involved with the company after being called in to provide advice after one of their employees sustained an arm injury in an accident in 2010.

The inquest continues.