A boy fell through a manhole cover to his death after a contractor failed to implement adequate safety measures. Shea Ryan, 10, slipped on a ladder inside the hole close to a play park near his home in Glasgow’s Drumchapel on July 16, 2020.
Shea was able to enter a construction site through an insecure fence before sitting beside the open cover 60 metres from the park. He told other children: “I want to go down.”
Prosecutor Saud Ul-Hassan told Glasgow Sheriff Court: “Shea began to climb down the ladder where he slipped and fell. From the position of the ladder, he fell to the water below.” The distance between the ladder and the bottom of the manhole was 6.3 metres.
