Tragedy as 7 year old boy is killed because of faulty wiring in pub

Back in 2018, Harvey Tyrell, a 7 year old boy was very sadly killed due to suffering a huge electric shock in a faulty pub. The young boy touched a metal rail as he sat on the pub wall lamp whilst playing with a friend in Essex.

According to reports, the light fixtures were said to have stolen electricity running through the rig at the time of the incident.

The pub landlord, David Bearman, was charged with manslaughter and admitted to stealing the electricity from an unmetered supply while he ran the premises.

Even more alarming was that the landlord was understood to have known about and to have laughed and joked with punters about the faulty electrics within the premises leading up to the horrific death of the young boy.

The boy tragically collapsed when the powerful electrical current ran through his body after simply touching the metal railing.

Colin Naylor, an electrician with 50 years’ experience, was also charged with manslaughter, after failing to fit the premises with safe lighting.

A sufficient check of the pub's fuse box would later reveal that the entire breaker panel was not properly earthed. Mr Bearman instead ignored health and safety regulations, avoiding his duty of care to seek planning permission for building projects and did not care to consider the dangers in the pub.

Incredibly, Mr Bearman had been injured himself before. A punter told of how they had witnessed the landlord emerge from the pub cellar clutching his arm, he’d touched the breaker panel and been blasted across the room in the process, he told the punter.

In 2009 an environmental health officer with the London Borough of Havering conducted a routine inspection of the pub and found numerous defects. The electrical defects included: broken external lamp fitting in patio area; internal grade wiring in the exterior; extensive use of trailing and fixed cable extension sockets; some poorly secured cabling in the kitchen; no current electrical test certificate for the premises.

The health officer wrote to Bearman informing him that defects with the electrical installation might be a source of 'danger from electric shock, burn or fire', the court was told.

The prosecution previously suggested Mr Naylor, an electrician with 50 years' of experience, was familiar with the premises and was aware of 'the unsatisfactory state' of the electrics as well as Mr Bearman, but did nothing to rectify this and ensure that the premises was a safe one.

This whole incident serves as a sad reminder and a warning of what can and will happen if safety is neglected.

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