A company boss was fined £10,000 on Tuesday over the death of a man who drowned while diving for golf balls.
The “highly qualified” commercial diver and his “now defunct” company were fined a total of £10,100 over two health and safety offences arising from the tragic death of his father-in-law who was diving in a golf course lake.
Imposing a “nominal” £100 fine on Golf Balls NI Ltd and a £10,000 fine on its sole director 39-year-old Tom Kieran Best, Judge Fiona Bagnall emphasised that “nothing I can impose is in anyway capable of equating to the life of Victor Crothers”.
Ahead of her sentencing remarks at Antrim Crown Court, Judge Bagnall paid tribute to the unfortunate man and put on record that she wanted “to pass on my condolences to his family and friends”.
She told the court it was clear from all the information before her that Mr Crothers “was always full of fun, very playful and loved to tell stories to his family”.
“I recognise that Christmas is always a very difficult time when loved ones are absent and that as with the last few years, he will be sorely missed,” said the judge, adding that Mrs Best had written a character reference for her husband, making it clear “what a loss” the death of her stepfather has been and that he is “dearly missed by the Best family”.
She added: “Sadly nothing I can say will bring Victor back or indeed make the pain for his family and fiends any less. He was obviously a man very much loved by all his family and someone who contributed greatly to the lives of those lucky enough to know him.”
Last October Best, from the Finvoy Road in Ballymoney, admitted that being an employer he failed to conduct his business “in such a way as to ensure, so far as was reasonably practicable, that persons not in their employment who may be affected thereby were not thereby exposed to risks to their health or safety, and you consented to, connived at, or did not exercise all such reasonable diligence as you ought in the circumstances to have exercised to prevent the offence”.
Golf Balls NI ltd, of which he as the sole director, entered a guilty plea to failing to ensure the health, safety and welfare of non-employees on 26 October 2021. Opening the facts of the case as she dealt with the case today (tues), Judge Bagnall outlined how the company was created in 2020 in order to retrieve, clean and sell golf balls from water hazards at various courses throughout NI.
With a pallet of balls fetching £2,000, Best was in charge of the day to day management of the company and was in charge of health and safety aspects given that he was an experienced and highly qualified commercial diver. Indeed, the judge revealed that before the accident Best held a diving qualification only held by 11 other people.
While Best was the sole director of the company two other men worked for it - Mr Crothers who was a trained recreational diver and another man who also trained and worked as a police diver. On 26 October 2021, Best and Mr Crothers were using scuba gear to search the lake at the Hilton Hotel golf course in Templepatrick and they had already retrieved about 1,500 balls when they took a break before re-entering the water around 12pm.
Describing how the lake is around 50 square metres and at its deepest is 2.5metres, Judge Bagnall said that when Best surfaced around 2pm “he noticed that Mr Crothers had not surfaced”.
He went back in to look for his father-in-law but when he could not find him, Best rang 999 and police and the air ambulance attended the scene. Tragically, it was the police diver who also worked for Golf Balls NI who found the body of his friend, a golf ball in his hand.
“His face was clam which suggested that he had not been struggling,” said the judge, adding that the cause of death was recorded as drowning.
Turning to the mechanics of the tragedy, Judge Bagnall said it was clear from the Diving at Work Regulations that “using surface supply breathing apparatus is the preferred and safest method”.
“The use of Self-contained underwater breathing apparatus (SCUBA) maybe be acceptable for simple tasks such a visual inspection in clear water where there is no risk of entrapment and the management of an emergency has been considered,” said the judge.
In the incident involving Mr Crothers there were several issues including that he was using scuba gear, the servicing of some of his equipment was out of date and his weight belt was cable tied on which then prevented him from dumping it and impeded him from being able to surface quickly.
Judge Bagnall said it was also clear from the diving at work regulations and guidelines that a team of four was needed to safely conduct a scuba diving exercise - a supervisor, a working diver, a standby diver and a tender for the working diver.
At interview Best admitted that he had not undertaken a risk assessment and “was of the opinion there was nothing to put us in harm’s way, later describing the risk as low”.
Best acknowledged that further safety measures should have been put in place such as having a diving contractor and supervisor, a spare oxygen cylinder, inspection of equipment, an effective weight harness and a dive plan, conceding that that the only safety measure he and Mr Crothers had taken was checking to see if bubbles were breaking on the surface.
He told police he had “discussed improving safety measures with Mr Crothers but he was against that idea due to associated costs” given the “small profit margins” in selling golf balls.
Imposing the fines, Judge Bagnall said it was clear “there were a number of safety measures that had not been attended to and that given his job and amount of training, the dangers ought to have been foreseeable to Best”.
“Both men were experienced divers and Mr Best highly qualified in this field, it’s surprising that someone with his experience and knowledge overlooked so many safety procedures,” the judge told the court, “I can only conclude that because they were diving in a small lake which was relatively shallow, this was considered a controlled environment therefore he was more casual about safety precaution than he would otherwise have been.”
Best, said the judge, “is clearly devastated” by his father-in-law’s death to such an extent that he has given up diving as a career and instead, has retrained as a remote controller of submersibles.
In a statement issued following the case, the Health and Safety Executive for Northern Ireland issued a statement. Kyle Carrick, a Principal Inspector with HSENI, said “This tragic drowning incident could easily have been avoided. Diving is a hazardous activity and there are specific requirements to control the risks associated with diving at work. These must be followed in order to avoid such tragedies.”
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