PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Martin Baker to be prosecuted over death of Flt Lt. Sean Cunningham
Old 8th Sep 2021, 14:37
  #682 (permalink)  
tucumseh
 
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: uk
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Falcon900

Indeed.

The trouble with such a cynical commercial decision is that it ignores the legal obligation to endeavour to prevent recurrence. However, MoD has the same obligation, and ignores it with impunity. So, too, the Coroner, but he was lied to in 2014; the scale of which only became apparent when the SI report was released after the Inquest. An even more cynical decision by MoD, preventing independent assessment. When the details were provided to Coroner Stuart Fisher before M-B's trial in 2018, he immediately sent them to the Judge. She was also lied to, but unlike the Coroner had all the necessary exculpatory evidence.

All these machinations make for a complex story; but at the most basic level the charge against M-B was irrelevant to the accident. The HSE's position was that, had the information been provided, the death would have been avoided. Nonsense. The information WAS provided. Not only did MoD choose not to implement it, it issued contradictory instructions; and did so again after the accident. That decision by MoD divorced supply of information from the accident.

And then Jonathan Bayliss was killed, the SI report repeating 12 recommendations.

In 2009 Haddon-Cave's report concentrated on a poor safety case. Here, there wasn't one. I wonder how he'd have dealt with this had he continued as Judge? Did he recuse himself, recognising the evidence would contradict much of his report? How convenient it wasn't aired in court.
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