Joshua Griggs: Co-worker avoids jail over teenager's death
The death of a teenager in a workplace accident a week into his summer job has led to a suspended jail term for his colleague and a fine for his employer.
Joshua Griggs, who was 19 and from Newmills, County Tyrone, died after becoming trapped under a lorry in Banbridge, County Down, in June 2021.
John Fagan, 38, from Dalriada Park in Dungannon, got a suspended sentence for causing his death by careless driving.
Contract Services Dng Ltd was fined £80,000 for health and safety breaches.
Judge Paul Ramsey KC, at Newry Crown Court, sitting in Craigavon, said the teenager's death had been "entirely avoidable" and described it as a "monumental tragedy".
The judge said he had read victim impact statements from Mr Grigg's parents, his brother and girlfriend about his character and his potential.
"The family and girlfriend were, and remain, devastated by the loss of a promising much loved young man," he told the court.
Known to his friends as Josh, Mr Griggs was a full-time student and a talented young Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) player.
He had started a summer job as a gully drain cleansing operator for Contract Services on 31 May 2021.
The court heard that after a short induction session that morning, he was out working on the roads by that afternoon.
The following week, on 8 June 2021, he was assigned to work with Fagan who was employed as a driver of a gully cleaning lorry.
The teenager's duties were to operate outside the lorry and use the drain cleaning equipment.
'Multiple severe injuries'
In an agreed statement of facts, prosecuting barrister Fiona O'Kane described how CCTV footage showed Mr Griggs standing with both feet on the footstep of the lorry as the vehicle travelled along a street in Banbridge.
As the lorry entered Foxleigh Fields in the town, a postman saw the teenager standing on the steps of the lorry, but as Fagan slowly turned a corner, "Josh became trapped underneath the front near side wheel and contact with the wheel resulted in fatal injuries".
"It is not known whether he slipped into the path of the wheel or had been attempting to step down," said Mrs O'Kane.
She added that a post-mortem examination report showed the cause of death was "multiple severe injuries to Josh's abdominal organs and chest".
Fagan was later interviewed by police, during which he was "upset and emotional".
He said he himself had been given no training to do with the operative, how they worked around the outside of the vehicle and their position moving between drain sites.
"He maintained that the practice of the gulley operative standing on the step of the lorry was common practice and there had been no previous issues with other gulley operatives," said Mrs O'Kane.
Fagan admitted causing death by driving carelessly as well as an offence under health and safety legislation. He was handed a six-month prison sentence, suspended for for two years, and he was also banned from driving for a year.
Fagan's employer, Contract Services Dng Ltd is based at Bovean Road, Dungannon.
It was contracted by Stormont's Department for Infrastructure to check and clean roadside drains and gullies.
At an earlier hearing 45-year-old Patrick McKenna, a director of the firm, entered a guilty plea on the company's behalf to a single count of failing to ensure, "as far as was reasonably practical," the health and safety and welfare of employees.
Sentencing both the defendant company and Fagan, the judge said "the practice of allowing someone to hang off the lorry as described and the degree of danger that that action foreseeably created was high".
