Four builders and a construction company have been charged with manslaughter after a mother died after being hit by falling bricks.
Mother-of-one Michaela Boor, 28, died from catastrophic head injuries when a pallet of more than two tonnes of bricks fell from a crane.
She had been walking back from her son’s nursery in March 2018, when the bricks came crashing down from a building site in Bethnal Green.
Tragically, the young mother died in hospital the next day.
Until now, no one had been charged with her death while police and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigated.
Alexander McInnes, 32, of Islington; Dawood Maan, 59, of Ashford Kent; Stephen Coulson, 68, of Hemel Hempstead; and Thomas Anstis, 68, of Banstead, are each accused of one count of gross negligence manslaughter and a health and safety offence.
Construction firm Higgins Homes was charged on Wednesday with corporate manslaughter and a healthy safety and offence.
Crane supervisor Maan, and Coulson who was responsible for compiling the lifting plan for the site, were both charged on April 30.
McInnes, the crane operator on the day of Michaela’s death, and Anstis, the Site Manager and Temporary Works Coordinator, were charged on May 8.
Michaela Boor, 29, of East London, died after she was crushed by bricks in East London
The completed apartment block where Michaela Boor was killed by falling bricks
Pictured: The aftermath of the bricks which fell around 70ft from the crane in Mile End in 2018
All are due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Monday, June 16.
Malcolm McHaffie, head of the Crown Prosecution Service’s special crime division, said: ‘Following a review of the evidence from the Metropolitan Police and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), we have authorised criminal charges against a company and four individuals in relation to the death of 30-year-old Michaela Boor in 2018.
‘Ms Boor died after being struck by falling bricks as she walked on the pavement past a building site on the corner of Burdett Road in Bow, east London, on March 27 2018.
‘Higgins Homes Plc has been charged with corporate manslaughter and a Health and Safety at Work Act offence, while Thomas Anstis, 68, Stephen Coulson, 68, Dawood Mann, 59, and Alexander McInnes 32, have each been charged with a single count of gross negligence manslaughter and offences under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.’
The Metropolitan Police said that Higgins Homes Plc, a construction company that develops and builds properties across London and the south east, was charged by postal requisition on Wednesday, May 7.
Speaking to MailOnline in 2019, Michaela’s mother Alaina Selby said: ‘Kieran knows that mummy is gone, that she got hurt and the doctors could not fix her. He thinks mummy is a star in the sky, he blows kisses to her.
‘He is pretty resilient but he does get sad. And every day I have to walk with him past the spot that his mother was killed. How is he going to cope with looking at that when he is older?’
Paramedics brought Michaela back to life as she lay in the road amid the debris.
But the young mother was declared brain-dead in hospital and her family were asked to make the agonising decision to turn off her life-support system on Michaela’s 29th birthday.
Michaela Boor’s mother, Alaina Selby, said: ‘We want answers. We want someone to be held responsible’
Michaela Boor poses with her son, Kieran, as a baby, left, and as a child, right
Tragic Michaela Boor as a small child, left, and in her school uniform, right
Unable to hold back tears, Alaina recalled: ‘The police came to the door that morning and told me Michaela had been in an accident and that we had to go to the hospital.
‘They rushed me there with the blue lights flashing. The police picked up everyone, Michaela’s dad, her brothers and sister. But when we got to the hospital all we could do was wait.
‘When they finally let us see her, I could hardly recognise her, she had so many tubes sticking out of her.
‘The doctors told us that she was brain-dead and said we should turn off her life-support.
‘But I couldn’t do it. I begged them to let us keep her for one more day because the next day was her birthday.’
Born into a tight-knit East End family, Michaela is sorely missed by those she left behind.
She was finally laid to rest at a moving funeral ceremony at the Manor Park Crematorium in east London on 27th April 2018.
Her loved-ones have also honoured Michaela’s memory with custom-drawn tattoos of blue butterflies, her favourite image.
The apartment block was completed a year after Michaela’s death, with apartments selling for up to £650,000 each.
