The devastated family of a police officer who died with his partner after falling through a roadside hoarding today said: “We will never get closure.”
Pc Gavin Brewer, 32, had been drinking with broadcasting engineer and musician Stuart Meads, 34, when they had a minor argument.
One of the men was pushed against construction hoardings that gave way and both fell almost four metres down an exposed light well at the junction of Hampstead Road and Netley Street near Euston.
Both suffered catastrophic head and neck injuries and died during the fall on October 19, 2013. Monavon Construction pleaded guilty to two counts of corporate manslaughter at a hearing at the Old Bailey last month and was this week fined £550,000 plus costs.
Today Mr Brewer’s mother Marian, 65, said the sentence would not bring her son back. “A door has been closed for us as a family. We will never get closure. You never expect to bury your child. It was a waste of two beautiful people and two sons which has broken two families,” she said.
Oliver Glasgow QC, prosecuting, told the court the protective hoarding on the perimeter of the site was not high or strong enough. There had been no cover on the light well for two months. He said up to 200 children and parents had walked along the road every day.
Judge Paul Worsley QC said the deaths were “unforgivable” and “wholly preventable”.
