Mum honours son who died in digger tragedy
A Shirley mum has honoured her son who was killed in a tragic digger accident, as part of Worker’s Memorial Day.
Engineer Mark Handford was just 22 when he died from head injuries after being hit by a digger bucket on a Redditch building site on 12th August 2009.
His family remembered their “lovely and gentle” son at a world-wide Workers’ Memorial Day event held at Brueton Gardens in Solihull on Monday.
Union reps and the Mayor Councillor Joe Tildesley hosted the service for local families to “remember the dead and fight for the living”.
Mark’s heartbroken mum Julie admitted she still felt bitter about her son’s “pointless” death.
“Mark wouldn’t have died if people had carried out the correct health and safety procedures,” she said.
“It was a pointless death, it needn’t have happened. That never leaves you, the shock and disbelief.
“We’re devastated, we’ll never be the same. We’re just living the best we can without him.” She added it was “imperative” that safety measures improved to protect future British workers. “We don’t want it to happen to anyone else,” she said.
Mark’s grandmother Christine Patterson, from Hall Green, added: “Today remembers the people that have been killed and that more needs to be done to protect others.
“Mark was a lovely, lovely lad. Everybody loved him. Quiet and gentle, they all thought the world of him.
“This helps us to cope with his loss which we’re still going through.”
An inquest into the former Lighthall School pupil’s death in September 2010 returned a verdict of accidental death.
Digger driver Jonathan Gold, 48, of Coleshill, later pleaded guilty at Birmingham Crown Court to failing to ensure the safety of a non-employee and was given a suspended seven month sentence over two years and 200 hours of unpaid work.
But Christine said the family had been hoping for a harsher punishment. “The driver has got off more or less scot free,” she added. “We feel like we’ve had no justice.”
Read full story here: http://www.solihullnews.net/news/local-news/shirley-mum-honours-son-who-7073632