More than five years after a stage collapse killed a drum technician and injured three other workers at a scheduled Radiohead concert in Toronto’s Downsview Park, a judge’s decision to stay oh&s charges against three implicated parties has drawn scorn from the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) and the U.K. rock veterans.
British worker Scott Johnson, 33, died in the collapse on June 16, 2012, and the provincial Ministry of Labour laid 13 charges against entertainment company Live Nation, contractor Optex Staging and engineer Domenic Cugliari the following year (COHSN, June 17, 2013).
But the charges were stayed on Sept. 5 of this year, following a mistrial that resulted when the presiding judge, Justice Shaun Nakatsuru, was appointed to the Ontario Superior Court and declared he no longer had jurisdiction over the case.
In her ruling to stay the charges, Justice Ann Nelson explained that numerous delays in trying the case had violated time limits that the Supreme Court of Canada established last year. “After allowing for all of the exceptional circumstances,” she wrote in the 21-page decision, “this case still will have taken too long to complete.”
In a Sept. 6 media release, the OFL expressed “serious concerns” over the decision, with Federation president Scott Buckley expressing shock and sadness in a press statement.
“Our judicial system failed the family of Scott Johnson,” said Buckley.
“Justice delayed is justice denied, [and] our thoughts and prayers are with the families of those workers killed and injured,” he added. “Those workers that survived, their families, and the family of Scott Johnson are today no closer to knowing why this tragedy occurred. That’s an injustice that must be righted.”
Buckley also criticized Justice Nakatsuru’s decision to declare a mistrial in June as “a serious flaw in our judicial system and one that the government needs to address quickly.
“How many cases get declared a mistrial when a judge gets a new appointment?”
A media statement issued by Radiohead on Sept. 8 noted that the band was “appalled” by the decision to stay the charges.
“This is an insult to the memory of Scott Johnson, his parents and our crew,” the group said. “It offers no consolation, closure or assurance that this kind of accident will not happen again.”
Lead singer Thom Yorke had already spoken out about the decision on Sept. 6, when he retweeted a statement by Caribou, the band that had been scheduled to open for Radiohead at the concert.
“(As someone who was standing behind this stage when it collapsed and would have been on it an hour later…) This is complete bulls–t,” the tweet by Caribou read.
“Words utterly fail me,” wrote Yorke.
Because the charges were stayed rather than withdrawn, it may still be possible to revive them before next Sept. 5 if any of the accused parties faces any new charges, according to information from Legal Aid Ontario.