Management at a Bell Bay industrial site where a man died in 2013 has denied any knowledge of the contractor cutting steel despite his timesheet detailing it as one of his duties.
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The inquest into the death of Richard Barker continued on Tuesday where former Bis Industries supervisor Brian Fitch told the Launceston Magistrates Court that he had no knowledge Mr Barker was undertaking cutting work, nor did he he recall a work order to collect scrap or cut steel.
“His role in the scrap was to collect it and put it in the bin,” Mr Fitch told Coroner Andrew McKee.
Mr Barker was contracted through ATH to complete greasing work at the Bis Industries and Temco sites.
During quiet periods, Mr Barker was expected to help tradesmen and collect scrap metal located on the south and west boundaries of the Bis Industries site.
Mr Barker was killed while using oxyacetylene to cut bolts from a panel attached to a decommissioned hopper at the Bis Industries site on April 24, 2013.
Former ATH contractor Jason Chorley told the court he’d seen Mr Barker cutting steel in the yard prior to his death. Cutting scrap metal was “one of his (Mr Barker’s) jobs”.
Mr Barker’s timesheet from April 18, 2013, listed “cut steel out of hopper” as his last entry.
Lawyer Dexter Marcenko, representing Mr Barker’s widow Jemma Barker, questioned Mr Fitch about whose responsibility it was to cross reference timesheets of ATH workers with work orders.
Mr Fitch said he reviewed the Temco employees’ timesheets, but he did not review all of the ATH timesheets as he did “not know everything they’d been directed to do”. Mr Chorley told the court to the best of his knowledge ATH timesheets were reviewed by someone from Bis Industries.
Each morning at 7am, pre-start meetings were conducted at the Bis Industries site with ATH workers by Mr Fitch. At the meeting, Mr Fitch would inform the ATH workers about any equipment which required maintenance or repairs. It was then processed through administration and a hard copy was given to the person tasked with the job.
If problems occurred at the Bis Industries site, Mr Chorley said “you’d see Brian (Fitch)”. Mr Fitch refuted any implication it was his job to supervise ATH contractors because he was “not a tradesman”. The inquest will continue on Wednesday.
