Successful application by Prashant Popat KC and Christopher Adams for the HSE to pay the entire costs of defending failed HSWA prosecution

Prashant Popat KC and Christopher Adams, instructed by Richard Crockford of FSW Law (formerly of Clyde & Co) and acting on behalf of the largest independent tower crane supplier in the UK, have successfully secured an order that the HSE pay their client’s entire costs of over £587,000 for defending a prosecution for alleged HSWA offences  arising out of a tower crane collapse on 21 June 2017 which tragically resulted in 3 deaths.

The costs application was made following the HSE’s decision to offer no evidence after cross-examination of the second prosecution witness, and the jury being directed to enter not guilty verdicts on Day 7 of a trial in November 2024. Following detailed written representations and oral submissions over two days, HHJ Everett DL, sitting in the Crown Court at Chester, held in a comprehensive 37-page written judgment that if the HSE had properly obtained and reviewed the evidence available to it, the prosecution should never have taken place.

As such, it was starkly improper, and constituted an unnecessary or improper act or omission for the purposes of s.19(1) of the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985.

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