The widow of a maintenance engineer crushed to death when a pop-up urinal he was repairing dropped suddenly is suing his employer for over £200,000 compensation.
Kevin Holding died in January 2023 when a telescopic toilet he was repairing outside the Palace Theatre in London’s West End ‘suddenly and without warning dropped and fell onto him’.
Emergency services, four fire engines and an air ambulance, raced to save the trapped worker but he was pronounced dead shortly after being freed from the machine.
The 60-year-old was identified by his Oyster card.
An inquest heard Mr Holding, a father-of-three from Beckenham, suffered ‘catastrophic’ injuries and died of compression asphyxia.
Mr Holding’s long-term partner, Katrina Woods, has now launched a six-figure damages claim over his death, suing his employers, Hi-Tec Washrooms Solutions Ltd.
She is seeking damages for over £200,000 alleging negligence and breach of duty, but the company is denying all liability.
Documents lodged with London’s High Court allege that Mr Holding’s bosses were at fault in failing to provide adequate training and in allegedly failing to properly maintain the urinal which ended up killing him.
Mr Holding, of Elmers End, Beckenham, Kent, died from ‘catastrophic’ injures caused by the impact, documents lodged with London’s High Court have disclosed.
The tragedy occurred after Mr Holding was sent out on January 27 2023 to carry out repairs to the urinal which involved him entering the ‘void’ beneath the pop-up toilet.
The cutting-edge retractable toilet unit, manufactured by Dutch company Urilift, is designed to be lowered below ground during the day then raised up at night using hydraulic power.
The urinal ‘suddenly and without warning dropped and fell onto him’, his barrister said, blaming the fatal drop on a ‘catastrophic failure of a fitting in its hydraulic system’.
Mr Holding was fatally crushed by the falling urinal and likely died from acute suffocation due to being trapped beneath the massive object.
Barrister Simon Brindle said: ‘The urinal dropped as a result of a catastrophic failure of a fitting in its hydraulic system. The fitting failed due to excessive corrosion’.
He argued that through poor maintenance the company allowed the fitting to become ‘excessively corroded’ and also failed to replace it in time to avoid the tragedy.
In court documents lawyers for Hi-Tech insist that another company was tasked with maintaining the urinal.
While acknowledging that the tragedy probably occurred due to corrosion in the hydraulic system defence barrister, Anna Symington, claimed: ‘The defendant was not responsible for the maintenance of the hydraulic system; further the defendant was not a specialist hydraulic contractor.
‘Hi-tech Washrooms had no responsibility for the fitting and could not reasonably have been aware of its corroded nature.’
On top of that the defence legal team say that Mr Holden was an experienced and well trained operator who ‘contributed’ to the accident through his own negligence in ‘failing to take sufficient care for his own safety’.
Pinpointing his alleged failings Ms Symington said Mr Holden was at fault in ‘failing to lower the urinal before commencing work inside the inspection chamber’, trying to replace the urinal’s water pump while the urinal was raised, and in failing to seek help if he felt it was necessary.
The case has yet to reach court and be tested in evidence before a judge.
