Warwickshire Warehouse fire

[JulieR]

I have spent the last six weeks attending Stafford Court every day to find out why my husband Ian died in the Atherstone on Stour fire on 2 November 2007 with the expectation that the truth would be told by his colleagues who were there that night, both the Incident Commanders and all others who entered that fire compartment.  A fire compartment in which a pallet fire had been reported at 17.40 and was still being treated as a pallet fire at 18.56 when my husband entered the compartment. What I never envisaged was three Incident Commanders with a total lack of courage to take the witness stand and give their version of events and defend their actions on the night.  What I also witnessed was successive Warwickshire firefighters suffering selective memory loss as to what instructions they were given by the Incident Commanders before their entry into the fire compartment.  In fact it was completely evident to me that all Warwickshire firefighters had been coached on how to conveniently forget that night and this coaching must have only been provided by either Warwickshire Fire and Rescue Service or the FBU. These men watched my husband dying in front of them - how can they possibly forget that night?  Why would they not want the truth to be told and why would the FBU also not want the truth to be told. Ask yourselves this, why only weeks after the incident did FBU officials attending witness interviews instruct firefighters not to answer questions?  No one had been arrested and no one had been charged with an offence and yet the FBU sought to cover up what actually happened that night. All I wanted was to get to the truth in order that lessons could be learned to save firefighter lives in the future and avoid other families going through the nightmare me and my daughter have experienced.  The FBU and Warwickshire firefighters have let me and my daughter down and more importantly have let my husband down. 

[kurnal]

Julie
God bless you and your daughter and rest assured the memory of your husband and his ultimate sacrifice will sit deep in the hearts of all of us for ever. Thank you for joining our forum and sharing your thoughts and feelings with us. None of us can begin to understand how the tragedy that unfolded at Atherstone has impacted on the families affected. I cannot defend the fire service and its closing of ranks - I have seen it happen before following a tragic event..

If you see in these forums apparent support and sympathy for those in the dock please rest assured it is nothing compared to our sorrow and loss at those who died. As serving or past fire service officers I am certain we all share the one over riding and driving aim- to bring all of your team safely back home again. Our sympathy extends to those who failed to do this and there,  there but for the grace of God go all of us. Almost any serving fire officer could find themselves in this position every day. I know having been close to it myself on one occasion. We were lucky thank God....  

Every system and every procedure will always be subject to Human error. The biggest enemy of the system is when the red mist descends- mis perception and mis information lead to a mis interpretation by the key operational manager and the pressure to be seen to be doing something leads to wrong and potentially dangerous paths being taken. Should such operational decisions and authority  rest on the shoulders of one individual? For a rapid and decisive response it is important that it does.  But it leaves us all very vulnerable  to the red mist. When hindsight proves that wrong decisions were made should it be the individual or the system on trial?


In this prosecution it was as though the tragedy was entirely the fault of the individual officers on their own. They were not working in isolation, they were operating a management system. The entire prosecution case appeared to be based on the opinion of one expert witness whose views as expressed appeared to be out of kilter with custom and practice. In my opinion if a case was to be brought it should have been considered against the system and structure as well as the individuals. The case against the system and structure would be for a failure to ensure an effective review, overview and control system exists within the dynamic risk assessment process to include a review of the task and objectives in addition to the tactics.

[Davo]

Colin

agree with you apart from the clapham omnibus bit, thats from another case and may confuse.

The point is, with all their experience and training, site obs etc, was the decision reasonable? It would seem so.

In regard to blame, we used to tell students that management would back any reasonable action but not anything stupid


davo

[colin todd]

Davo, I thought samuel agreed with that. The average man is the man on top of the clapham omnibus. Why is the average medic, consultant or fire officer simply the medic consultant or fire officer on the same bus. That tends to have been case law of a sort. I have always been advised by top legal professionals that, as a professional, I can rely on that unless custom and practice in the whole profession is bad.

[SamFIRT]

Julie R Please accept my condolences. I too would wish truth to be displayed. Hopefully this discussion may assist.

Kurnal

When hindsight proves that wrong decisions were made should it be the individual or the system on trial?

I agree.... H&S legislation should expose corporate as well as personal failure.

Colin / Davo......Whilst I accept the analogy and the point of the person on the top of the Clapham omnibus being *an average person*; in this case we are discussing staff holding positions of authority, for which a degree of technical competency has to be displayed.

A professional person must be adjudged against others, holding similar positions, in similar organisations. I feel the shorthand of the man on the Clapham omnibus being the average person holds true if we are choosing the definition average to be of the the skills knowledge and understanding of the average watch manager / station manager etc.

So I think you both have a point.
 

[Tom Sutton]

JulieR and all the other people involved, please accept my heart felt condolences.

It doesn’t surprise me these expert witnesses differed in their opinions because a group of similar qualified individuals given a fire scenario will all come up with different solutions, despite the fancy words it’s not a scientific discipline, it’s the experience you gets from doing it, either on the training ground or the fire ground and learning from your mistakes. As was said before a course at Moreton “most fire service subjects are about 20% knowledge and 80% common sense” and there is a lot of truth there.

As for the truth, that went out the window when these three individuals were charged and went to court. The court system is adversarial and is about two sides, one side trying to prosecute you, the other attempting to prevent it, at any cost within the law. I suspect the accused were advised not to take the stand by their barristers in case they said anything to jeopardise their case and witnesses tend to have selected memories. I don’t think we will ever get to know the full truth.

[colin todd]

Samuel, that was my very point. Bear in mind I do not claim to know a jot about operational firefighting, but it is the principles of this case that interest me. The point I was making about the bus was that, if you follow case law from other professions, all that is expected from a watch manager is what the average watch manager would do in the same circumstances at the time in question, not what the highest skilled operational senior officers might, with hindsight, believe should have been done-that was the anaolgy pf the medical case.

Thomas, you are right about adversarial positions, other than in respect of expert witnesses, whoe role is purely to assist the course and not those instructing them. Indeed, the law in England (though not to the same degree in Scotland) requires an expert witness to be impartial and to state in their report that they understand that their duty is solely to the court and that they have complied with that duty, along with a statement of truth that makes them open to perjury charges if they have not stated what they genuinely believe to be true.

[nearlythere]

I think one of the issues here is that of the measure of competency appropriate to rank, (or is it role now?) From what I can remember competency in command and control was never an issue when it came to promotion and there was no additional training provided to ensure that with promotion comes greater responsibility and accountability especially on the fire ground.
There did seem to be a greater need to demonstrate an ability to time manage and prioritise effectively as, I suppose, the greater part of the job was the planning and management of projects and, of course, the old box ticker - budget management. The bigger the budget you managed the better.
I would say that I do recall some excellent operational officers who were let down by a weakness in the office and they fell by the wayside as the new Fire & Rescue Service wanted a hierarchy of managers rather than commanders.

[SamFIRT]

My next comments are purely hypothetical and in no way are intended to reflect directly on this case and are in no way intended to offend.

A lot of the contributors to this forum are (or seem to be) of advanced years. Many are retired or long serving fire service officers. Many hanker for a mythological “good old days “whilst they “swing the lantern”.

However, the British fire service has moved on. There is a different culture. There is a different command and control system. There is better PPE and fire fighting equipment. There is a different selection promotion and appointment system.

How much technical knowledge has to be demonstrated before a person is appointed? How much experience has to be gained? What technical standards have to be demonstrated? How well does an organisation disseminate acquired intelligence? How widespread is the buy-in for new operational techniques? How good is the training in the organisation? Especially command training; what with the reduction in operational experience, with less fire calls and differing shift systems. What is the methodology of recording that training and the levels of competency of those trained?

What I would like to know, following any enquiry into any FRS, is; what, if anything, any of these factors contributed to the outcome?

[nearlythere]

You might have answered some of your points already in your signature Sam.

[wee brian]

I think there's still some stuff to be done in terms of an outstanding prosecution of the FRS itself (HSE) and then a Coroners inquest. Hopefully some of these questions will be answered then.