Tim Marsh reflects on a recent mock trial, and its tangible impact after a workplace incident.
I’ll begin with a quote about the day from Gill Bradley of Nuclear Waste Services:
“I literally have no words to truly describe this fully immersive day … but some words I can and will use are amazing, emotional, captivating, absorbing, riveting and…INSPIRATIONAL. This team want nothing more but to share their lived experiences to prevent harm occurring to others. I have literally thought of nothing else since returning … and am busy preparing material to share with my peers to ensure this wonderful teams learning, passion, dedication and heartfelt openness reaches as far as possible”.
Lots of others who attended the day at the old Bethnal Green Town Hall Court said similar things and this article seeks to help with that ‘reach’. The quote fully captures how Matt Hazleton and his friends were able to turn a long-held learning event vision into such an impactful event.
The day started with a partition suddenly opening next to the coffee/waiting area and a team of actors’ distraught reaction to a fatality that has just occurred. A digger arm has struck a pedestrian/colleague using a walkway that wasn’t barriered off. (You may well have seen a similar recreation).
The audience were then led into the spectacular old court room and invited to sit in the gallery seats. (You probably haven’t seen anything like this. This grand old court is a stone’s throw from the York Hall, Bethnal Green and the infamous Blind Beggar pub. The stories those benches could tell …)
First, the audience saw the key individuals interviewed by a HSE inspector and a policeman (the banks-person who was distracted; the digger driver who didn’t see their colleague try and nip through and the company owner). The workers are both traumatised and upset, but the company owner was defensive (and clearly culpable).
After a brief inquest we proceed to a trial where a full jury is led in and invited in to take their seats.
The prosecuting lawyer was Laura Thomas (who, in real life, prosecuted Levi Bellfield and others) and the defence counsel Rolf Althen – another hugely experienced lawyer. Presiding as judge, Richard Matthews KC (King’s Council) one of the UKs most senior legal figures.
With Rod Silvers and his team of actors all highly skilled and throwing themselves into their roles this made for a hugely credible recreation. (Especially as the HSE inspector, policeman and expert witness talking about safety culture are in real life a retired senior HSE inspector a retired chief constable and an expert witness).
For what it’s worth the company owner was found guilty and Judge Matthews sentenced him to 10 years in jail and a million pound fine. It was as detailed and realistic a recreation as has ever been staged (we’re assured) but, actually, that’s not at all what gave the event the impact that Gill and others attested to.
For those of you who might not know:
Matt Hazleton, who narrated the day throughout, lost two brothers and two good friends in a single accident in January 2011. He is a charismatic and articulate man who prowls the stage like Mike Tyson (in his heyday!) and, as you can imagine, gives as impactful a safety talk as you could ever see.
So, the second half of the day was Matt explaining who he is and testimony from the people involved in the incident.
This commenced with Laura and Rolf explaining emotionally that they were involved in prosecuting the real incident and the impact it had on them. (It was, for example, central to Laura taking off her legal wig and jumping sides to work with organisations to prevent accidents).
John Elven (formerly of the HSE) and police chief Andy Guy both talked very movingly about the impact of such events on them as people – and in a way most of us in the audience simply wouldn’t often consider with both stressing ‘please remember we’re just people too!’
John, quoting Shakespeare no less, explaining how after 10 years as an investigator he too needed to move to working proactively as a company head of HSE. Andy Gill’s talk reminded me of the famous Al Pacino speech in the film ‘Sea of Love’ – ‘the things these eyes have seen’.
This really was ‘pin drop’ impactful but it was about to get very much more so as Matt then introduced the jury as this was entirely comprised of his colleagues when the incident occurred, the widows and siblings of the men killed – and Matt’s mother.
Later, in a Q&A, I was asked about the physiology of memory and learning and was able to explain how and why some things stick and some things just bounce in and out. Case in point: no one who was in that room will ever forget the emotion of these introductions – and especially, Matt trying, and failing, to introduce his mum.
It was an event as unique as it was impactful and as Gill says, utterly inspiring.
