Safety Matters

[Graham Breeze]

I can’t claim to have followed this important thread round by round, but the importance of the main issue demands we shouldn’t ignore it. Unless I have missed some, I have the clear impression that all contributors with professional experience of safety management in industry tend to agree with AI’s general position, if not the way he presents it. I certainly do. FRA committee’s last and only safety professional resigned because he felt that ethically he had no alternative. I agree with him.

This debate tends to be pitched as FRA vs. anti-FRA. It isn’t. It’s about two very different ways of managing safety. Both can work. One will work far better than the other and stems from decades of industrial experience that can usefully be applied to our predicament. It will be a great pity if the sport splits on its approach, but a split now seems inevitable. So we should get on with it and leave race organisers to choose their preferred way. This is not FRA vs. anti-FRA, but safety by prescriptive rules vs. non prescriptive rules and guidance.
Any race organiser who had witnessed how close the Sailbeck inquest sailed to a miscarriage of justice would find his choice straightforward. One day the full record may go public.

The near miss was caused by the behaviour of the UK Athletics witness and their lawyer, who was doing the thorough job his client paid him for, and doing this by using FRA rules against the race organiser despite the revelation of rule breaches having no influence on the tragic outcome. At a future inquest into a tragedy under FRA rules, this lawyer and his successors will relax in the knowledge that their client need have no fear litigation against UKA. The new rules will almost guarantee that the race organiser will suffer an even more traumatic inquest than some of us witnessed at Sailbeck even if, again, the race organiser is blameless.

All the important points have been made over and over again. The non-prescriptive way (forget taped seams!!!) will make fell racing safer for all by placing ownership of safety and its detailed implementation in the best places – shared between organiser and competitors. Race organisers now need to choose their own way and get on with the next race.

Keith Burns

I thought Keith would be along to recruit English RO to register their races with Scottish Hill Runners although as I understand things SHR races are still being run under a "cut and paste" version of the FRA "prescriptive" model?

I do wonder how, following a future death in an English fell race registered with SHR , the RO would explain to an English Coroner that he had registered his race with a Scottish organisation because he found the safety requirements demanded by the English FRA governing body (and amended in the light of his or a colleague's recommendations) too demanding? Particularly since the police would almost certainly ask the FRA/UKA to critique the race arrangements.

However I need to correct/clarify some assertions about the Belfield Inquest.

* Keith was present at the inquest as an "expert witness". He was not an "interested party" of which there were 3: Mrs Belfield, Mike Robinson and me (for the FRA).

* There were over 20 witnesses called (including Keith) and more witness statements were "read out in court into the record" eg that of the Pathologist. Keith was required to attend for around an hour or so of the 4 days, although he chose to be present for longer.

* His status was the same as that of John Temperton who represented UKA as the other "expert witness", whom he chooses to criticise.

* The assertion of a potential "near miss" or "miscarriage of justice" is his opinion. It is not mine. Access to the "full record" will not support his view.

* The assertions about the "UK Athletics witness and their lawyer" are wrong. The person briefing the UKA/FRA lawyer was me. I sat behind the lawyer in Court and I alone passed notes to him during the hearings (with the support of the FRA Chair who sat by me) and consulted with him before and after each session. The letter submitted to the Coroner on day 4 from the FRA was jointly written by me/the FRA Chair and our lawyer. Nobody else and certainly not UKA.

There are other wrong assertions in Keith's post, but my open question is: "Do people really think a representative of a Scottish fell organisation, which does not operate under English Law and which is independent of UKA, has the best interests of English fell runners and English race organisers at heart?"