NSW: Gretley mine disaster convictions first in 200 years

AAP General News (Australia)
08-09-2004
NSW: Gretley mine disaster convictions first in 200 years

Coal mine owners and operators have been convicted of safety breaches over the deaths
of four men in a Hunter Valley mine disaster.

It's the first conviction of its kind in the 200-year history of the coal industry
in New South Wales.

EDWARD BATTERHAM, DAMON MURRAY, JOHN HUNTER and MARK KAISER drowned 150 metres underground
after they drilled into an old, flooded shaft in the Gretley Colliery in November 1996.

In the Industrial Relations Commission, Justice PATRICIA STAUNTON has found the Wallsend
Coal Company, its parent company Oakbridge, the mine's surveyor MARK ROBINSON and managers
RICHARD PORTEOUS and JOHN ERIK ROMCKE guilty of breaching the Occupational Health and
Safety Act.

They will be sentenced at a later date.

DAMON MURRAY's father IAN says the judgement has brought some relief, but he's concerned
that justice has taken so long to arrive.

Justice STAUNTON has found there was a failure to undertake proper research at the
Gretley mine and to depict the old mine on the Gretley plans.

She's found this created a working environment that was fraught with real and foreseeable risk.

Sentences will be handed down at a later date.

AAP RTV evt/kbw/wjf/rp

KEYWORD: GRETLEY (SYDNEY)

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