THE GARNANT COLLIERY PROSECUTION AT LLANDILO.
_____________________
THE CHARGE OF MANSLAUGHTER DISMISSED.
________
At the Llandilo Petty Sessions on Saturday last (before Mr H.
Peel and Mr Thursby Pelham) the adjourned prosecution of Thomas
Michael, a workman, formerly employed at the Garnant Colliery,
Cwmamman, who was charged with causing the deaths of the ten men
who were killed at the colliery on January 16th last by the breakage
of the shaft rope, was resumed. The defendant, it will be remembered,
was accused of unlawfully tampering with the "keeps"
which support the cage at the top of the pit.
Mr T.G.Williams, Llandilo, again prosecuted, Mr W. Howell, Llanelly,
defended the accused (who was on bail) and Mr Simons, of Merthyr,
represented the Colliery Company.
The case for the prosecution was not concluded on the previous
Saturday, and was now resumed.
Thomas Morgan, collier, re-called said it frequently happened
that one pair of keeps fangs caught the cage as it was descending,
in consequence of the fangs on one side not receding as they should.
Re-examined - Neither he nor anyone else could say why the fangs
did not catch every day.
To the Bench - The colliers thought the defective working dangerous,
but did not object to go down.
John Davies, the overman, was next called, and said that the bottom
of the cage caught the fangs when the engine man did not lift
the cage high enough or the banksman did not work the levers in
time. There was no danger in that. It was not in his knowledge
that anybody except the banksman worked the lever. Thomas Michael
had no authority to work the lever. In consequence of what Thomas
Morgan stated at the last hearing of the case, he had seen and
conversed with nearly all the men (adults) employed at the colliery,
and had prepared a list (which he produced) of all the men who
had, by his order acted as banksmen.
Mr Howell objected to this being made evidence.
Witness, continuing, said he could not give the names of those
who had acted as banksmen, and
The evidence relating to that list was struck out.
To Mr Howells - Since the accident the collar board at the top
of the pit had been cut away a little to allow the fangs to recede
further in when opened.
Mr Howells - Can you show me any special rule which states it
to be exclusively the banksman's duty to work the lever? - I think
the 77th rule does.
The Bench said it seemed a matter of inference.
Daniel Beavan, fitter and mechanical engineer at the colliery,
said it was his duty to examine the ropes daily, and he examined
the broken rope on the 15th January. He did not observe a single
broken wire, and he considered the rope ought to have done a lot
more work.
Cross-examined - The rope was on the machinery when examined.
The examination was by the engine slowly running the rope through
his hand. There was a large accumulation of grease on the rope.
He scraped some parts of the rope, but where the grease covered
the rope he could not say whether the wires were broken or not.
He had no opinion as to the cause of the breakage. Some of the
wires inside the fractured part were corroded and reduced in size,
and consequently reduced in strength.
Re-examined - Only three ropes had been used on that side of the
pit - one for 5 years, one for 2 years, and the next, which broke,
for 16 months. When a wire broke, the end sprang out, and no ordinary
quantity of grease would cover it.
David Jenkins, the day banksman on the day of the accident, was
next called, and said he was paid as banksman, higher wages than
the labourers. Thomas Michael was a labourer, and it was not part
of a labourer's duty to touch the lever. On the morning of the
accident Michael was near the lever of the cage in which the ten
men who were killed went down. He did not give Michael permission
to work the lever. He (witness) could have given permission to
a competent man to work the lever, but Michael was incompetent.
He had no chance to prevent Michael touching the lever. If the
lever had been drawn back properly the cage with the horse door
on could not have caught. If the engine man and banksman did not
work together the cage would be stopped at the top but there was
no danger, and that stoppage would be quite different from that
of the 16th of January, when the bottom of the cage had passed
through the fangs.
To the Clerk - He saw Michael do nothing except have his hand
on the lever.
Cross-examined - One objection to Michael standing by the lever
with his face to the engine was that he could not so easily work
the signal of the lever. He could say how the night banksman did
it. He did know whether the night banksman had only one hand or
parts of two hands. For several days after the accident he said
to several people that he worked the lever when the accident occurred.
He might have said that he had two hands on the lever. He had
changed his tale because truth must be told in the end. He did
not want to do injustice to himself. He made the first statement,
because as Michael was not in the habit of working the lever,
he thought it would smooth matters if he said he worked it. He
said nothing to Michael for meddling with the lever. Witness let
four men down in the other cage that morning before the accident.
That cage was not allowed to be used for men - it was prohibited.
Mr Howell - That is the competent man who is to incarcerate us.
(To Witness) - Then the reason you were not at the side where
the ten men were going down, and where you ought to have been
attending to your duty was that you were doing an illegal act
at the other cage!
Witness - That cage must have gone down.
Re-examined - He did not stop Michael at the lever because he
did not know he was there, or that he was doing anything until
the cage was passing through the fangs, and then it was too late.
Bartlett, and others who saw the accident, contradicted witness's
first statement.
Mr John Hay, manager of the colliery, said that before men were
appointed banksmen they had a certain amount of instruction in
the work. After the accident he gave Mr Wales (the Government
Inspector) certain hearsay statements as to the length of time
the previous rope had lasted. The book with the correct record
was then mislaid. The book had since been found, and that information
found to be incorrect. The alteration in the fangs after the accident
was owing to certain representations of the men, but it did not
add to the safety of the descent. He had tested the bearing strain
of a piece of the rope ten feet from the fracture at Messrs Elliotts'
yard, Cardiff, on Tuesday.
The Clerk said that the court had evidence of the state of the
rope at the fracture.
Mr Howell said he would admit that the rope in most parts was
good, but his case that it was bad at the fracture.
Cross-examined - He went to Cardiff to test the rope to satisfy
himself. He paid his own expenses, and was not sent by the Colliery
Company, or anybody else. There would be some sulphur coming up
the pit, and sulphur tended to corrode wire ropes.
This concluded the case for the prosecution.
Mr Howell then opened the case for the defence in a long and pointed
address. He commented upon the way in which the defendant had
been prosecuted, nominally, said Mr Howell, by Mr Williams on
the part of the police, but really by Mr Simons on behalf of the
Colliery Company. The prosecution had a weak case. They had not
proved what they had intended to prove. His contention was that
the rope as a result of a weakness at the point of fracture brought
about by its being worn and exposed to steam and other agents
tending to corrode, and not by the sudden jerk which the witnesses
for the prosecution had been called to prove. Further more, he
contended that the machinery of the works was defective, and that
instead of the lever working, the keeps being handled exclusively
by the banksman. Many men had worked them, and he had a large
number of witnesses to prove it.
Mr T. E. Wales, Government Inspector of Mines, was first called
for the defence, and said he examined the broken rope on the 16th
and 17th January, and the fangs or keeps of the side where the
accident happened. He attended the inquest, and heard the whole
of the expert evidence. His conclusion as to the rope was that
at the fracture it was considerably worn and so weakened as to
be unable to bear the load it had to carry. He believed that weakness
was brought about by the rope being corroded by the action of
steam. He was of opinion that the accident was caused by a fracture
arising from the weakness of the rope, and not from the fangs
catching. If the cage caught at the fangs, and six or seven feet
of slack had run out (as had been suggested), when the cage dropped
and the slack tightened there would have been such a strain upon
the rope as would have produced a great shock and noise at the
drum. He made enquiries-
Mr Williams objected to these statements, and
Mr Howells said he would get it out of the other witnesses.
Cross-examined by Mr Williams - He had known Mr Hosgood, who was
called for the prosecution, for some years, but not as holding
an eminent position in the mining world. He was not a mining man
by any means. He was formerly manager of Mr Fothergill's iron
works, but not of his collieries. Mr Hosgood had not had collieries
under his care, and he (Mr Wales) never met him officially at
any colliery. If he had been manager of Fothergill's collieries,
Mr Fothergill ought to have reported that fact to witness, and
he had never done so. He would not believe Mr Hosgood against
his own experience and knowledge. He had inspected the Garnant
colliery since the inquest - not because the first inspection
was incomplete, but because new ropes had been put there. If the
fangs were worked properly the horse door would not catch. He
did not offer any opinion to the jury at the inquest as to whether
the door would catch the fangs. The fact of the horse door being
on did not come out till near the end of the inquest. It was kept
back. He said distinctly that the cage might have stopped, but
if it did so it was because the engine stopped for a second, and
not because the cage caught the fangs. It was no business of his
that none of the experts at the inquest agreed with him. It was
often the case. Unfortunately (for himself he meant) he was a
disinterested witness. At the inquest on Friday no one agreed
with him, but that did not alter the fact. In the face of all
the evidence given at the inquest he did not believe that the
cage was stopped by the fangs.
Mr Williams - That is not my question.
Witness - But that is my answer.
Further cross-examined - He never said Mr Hosgood was an eminent
man, and he would not say that he knew more about ropes than witness.
He had seen far more ropes than Mr Hosgood. Mr Hosgood was summoned
to give evidence by the Coroner, but he was not likely to be as
independent as witness. There would not be less resistance to
a descending cage than to an ascending cage. A ton was a ton whether
it went up or down. He allowed nothing for atmospheric pressure
upon the descending cage. He recommended Mr Hosgood to the Coroner.
Mr Williams - And you now decline to fall in with his theory.
Witness - I decline to fall in with any man's theory which does
not agree with my own. I should mention one thing in which Mr
May (the representative of Sir Geo. Elliot & Co., the makers
of the rope) is concerned. I don't know whether he is correct
or not correct. A day or so ago after the accident I met Mr May
in a railway carriage, and he expressed the opinion that the breakage
was due to the weakness of the rope, and not to the cage catching.
No one could tell from seeing a fracture what caused the breakage
of a rope. I do not say that Mr Hosgood had no business to offer
an opinion on that point. Generally speaking the broken rope was
good.
Re-examined - The bar of the horse door was produced at the inquest
to show where the fangs caught, - so it was said, - but the marks
passed over it.
Mr Howell was then about to call a number of other witnesses,
when
The Bench interposed and said they had heard enough. The case
would be dismissed.
The result was received with marks of the great approbation on
the part of a large number of workmen who sided with the defendant.
|