Walkabout bar is fined £48,000 after barman, 20, was crushed to death in lift as he cleaned up following ‘Carnage’ student night
- Cyran Stewart, 20, died after falling bar stool pinned him to the side of a lift
- Elizabeth Galbraith says her son’s death could have been prevented
- Intertain Ltd fined £48,000 after lift wasn’t serviced for more than two years
The company behind Walkabout bars has been fined £48,000 after one of a barman was crushed to death in a lift that hadn’t been serviced for more than two years.
Cyran Stewart, 20, lived above Swansea’s Walkabout bar in Wind Street when he was clearing up from a busy student night.
The former computer science student was moving heavy bar stools from the basement when one fell and pinned him to the side of a lift for half an hour.
Cyran Stewart, 20, lived above the Walkabout bar in Swansea where he suffered fatal injuries loading bar stools into a lift that hadn’t been serviced in more than two years.
Cyran Stewart lived with his brother at the Walkabout bar in Wind Street, Swansea. On Tuesday Intertain Ltd, Walkabout’s parent company, was fined over his death in 2014.
At the time of his death in 2014, staff would occasionally override a safety mechanism in the lift so it could fit more chairs inside.
An inquest heard the lift had been overridden at the time Mr Stewart died.
The former student, who grew up in Shifnal, Shropshire, had been helping clean up the club at around 3am after a popular Carnage student event.
He was lifting heavy bar stools and chairs into the lift alone when he was trapped by a falling stool.
As the lift was going up, one of the legs of an upturned chair caught on the ceiling of the floor above, and moved. The former computer science student was crushed against the inside of the lift cage.
Colleagues raised the alarm after hearing Mr Stewart’s screams, but a special key for opening the lift in an emergency was missing, and paramedics had to wait for firefighters to force it open before beginning treatment.
Mr Stewart was put on life support at Swansea’s Morriston Hospital, but died four days later.
A jury at Swansea Coroner’s Court returned a verdict of accidental death in 2018.
Walkabout operators Intertain Ltd later pleaded guilty to five offences under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.
District judge Neale Thomas fined the company £48,000. The firm will also have to pay £15,130 towards costs – a sum agreed between prosecution and defence.
Yesterday (Tuesday) magistrates heard the lift had missed its regular six-monthly thorough examination – and hadn’t been inspected for 962 days before the fatal incident in 2014.
A lift specialist with the HSE, Jamie Davies, said in his opinion the lift was in a poor condition and should not have been in use at the time of the fatality.
Walkabout Week Street in Swansea closed in January, nearly six years after barman Cyran Stewart died. A solicitor for Walkabout’s parent company says it made changes to safety procedures after the 20-year-old died
Workers desperately tried to free the lift by manually turning an emergency wheel, but Mr Stewart remained trapped until he was freed by firefighters 31 minutes later.
Mr Stewart had moved to Swansea after quitting a computer science degree at the University of Bradford.
After the hearing, his mother Elizabeth Galbraith said it had ‘virtually ripped my heart again’.
She said: ‘My son Cyran did not die in a freak accident that could not be foreseen or prevented, but in an incident similar to several others that had previously occurred and about which I believe management and supervisors were aware.’
She said if incidents had been reported to health and safety consultants, action could have been taken ‘to prevent my son from being in that situation in the first place and prevented his death’.
She added: ‘My life has been totally destroyed and the closeness of my family has been pulled apart.’
The Wind Street Walkabout closed in January.
Elizabeth Tremayne, defending, said the company felt ‘genuinely regretful’ for what had happened and had made changes to procedures following Cyran’s death.