A Queensland coal producer and one management representative have been accused of failing to provide fundamental work conditions that fuelled one fatality.
Middlemount Coal and site senior executive Darren Lee Cuthbertson will face Mackay Industrial Magistrates Court in April 2023.
They have been charged in relation to a 2019 high wall collapse that engulfed and killed machine digger David Routledge at Peabody Energy’s and Yancoal’s Middlemount Coal Mine, 255km south of Mackay.
They allegedly breached health and safety regulations while the mine operator failed to meet health and safety obligations, causing death or grievous bodily harm. They neither conducted assessments nor implemented hazard mitigation measures after an explosion occurred 10 days prior to the fatality, which allowed up to 3 metres of rock to hang from the high wall.
Mine manager Darrin Brian Milner was among the accused back in 2020. However, his charges were dropped after the acting work health and safety prosecutor found no “reasonable prospects” of convicting him on 29 September 2022.
The Mining and Energy Union (MEU) questioned the prosecutor’s decision to stop pursuing Milner.
“Workers within the industry, his family and friends would want answers on why David was put in a position where he lost his life,” MEU Queensland district president Stephen Smyth said according to News Limited.
“Now charges are dropped and people will be asking the question ‘why’. How do you commence charges against people and then drop them? All the family want is answers.”
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