Dad crushed to death by church that suffered from ‘long-predicted’ collapse

Jeff Plevey, 56, died when the church collapsed and the scaffolding he was standing on 'disintegrated'.

A scaffolder was crushed to death in a ‘long-predicted’ collapse of a derelict Victorian church, a court was told.

Jeff Plevey, 56, was standing on scaffolding around the Citadel Church in Splott, south Cardiff, when it ‘disintegrated’, a prosecutor said.

Two other workmen were also buried in the rubble but they were able to escape with minor injuries.

Search teams spent several hours using sniffer dogs and drones to look for the dad-of-two before finding his body.

Keith Young, 72, from Llandough, and Stewart Swain, 53, from Whitchurch in Cardiff, are standing trial accused of gross negligence manslaughter.

Swain is the director of Swain Scaffolding Limited while Young is the director of Young Contractors, the demolition firm involved in the work.

Prosecutor Andrew Langdon QC told the jury how at around 2.45pm nearby railway workers heard a ‘loud crack’ and a ‘bang, like a small explosion’.

They heard men shouting ‘run’, and telling someone to ‘jump’ before scaffolding around the church collapsed with another ‘huge bang’.

Mr Langdon said the scaffolding ‘looked like liquorice, having been burned to nothing under the weight of what had crushed it’.

He added: ‘This case is about the collapse of that church wall. Could it have been predicted? If so, why were three men working on scaffolding that abutted it?’

Both Swain and Young deny the charges which were brought after a joint investigation by South Wales Police and the Health and Safety Executive.

Mark Gulley, director of Amos Projects, which owned the church at the time, and Richard Lyons, a partner at Optima Scaffold Design Solutions, are also on trial for health and safety offences.

The church on Splott Road was built in 1892 and was mainly used by the Salvation Army until it became vacant around 20 years ago and fell into disrepair.

Mr Gulley had intended to refurbish the property into flats but later decided to demolish it and sell the site to developers.

A report by Network Rail found the church to be in a ‘poor’ state, and said the rear wall was ‘in danger of imminent collapse’.

The report was sent to Mr Gulley in the summer of 2016 and he shared it with all of the contractors hired to carry out the demolition, but not with Mr Swain, who was the director of the scaffolding company.

Despite the report’s warning and the ‘obvious’ danger posed by the rear wall, the prosecution say contractors failed to carry out sufficient works to stabilise it.

Scaffolding erected around the building was then tied to the wall, making any collapse liable to take the scaffolding with it.

Mr Langdon said: ‘It was the long-predicted collapse of that unstable wall. Unsupported and dangerous as it had been throughout, it had become even more dangerous since the demolition of the church had begun.’

The trial is expected to last up to 10 weeks at the Swansea Civic Centre.

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