Casualisation kills: The Simon Jones Memorial Campaign

“People like Simon Jones get killed at work all the time and nothing gets done about it. Not this time”

It’s a sad statistic, but in the last ten years more than 3,000 people have died as a result of injuries suffered at work and a further 200,000 have suffered serious injuries. Every day workers are sent into situations without the necessary skills and training to work in environments such as the one that Simon Jones faced.

Simon was a 24 year old from the Sussex University. He was taking a year out from the course he was studying - Social Anthropology. Under pressure from his local benefits office to take a job, he went to the Personnel Selection recruitment agency, in Brighton. They sent him to work as a Stevedore at the Shoreham dockyard West Sussex for the Dutch-based firm Euromin.

Despite the fact that he had no training or experience and very little in the way of protective clothing, He was assigned the job of unloading; a Polish cargo ship that had docked that day. His job was to attach bags to chains hanging from the inside of the grab, which was open.

This was a highly irregular practice (the subsequent court case criticised the company for doing this). Simon died when the lever that operated the grab got caught in the clothing of the crane operator, causing the jaws to close around Simon’s head.

This tragic event has been a strain on the parents of Simon, Ann and Chris Jones, but their anguish has been heightened by the seeming disregard for their son’s life. For the first few days after the death they had no idea as to how Simon had been killed. It was only a chance meeting with one of Simon’s friends and a colleague that day that they found out the true course of events.

Enraged by this disregard for a life and a sense that justice must prevail. The friends and family of Simon Jones set up The Simon Jones Memorial Campaign. This campaign was set up to bring justice to the people they felt were responsible for Simon’s death.

The campaign is also fighting for recognition of a law of corporate manslaughter that would help in cases such as Simon’s. It has also highlighted the unlawful deaths of workers resulting from the increased casualised nature of work today. They did not want Simon’s death to become another statistic of a work related fatality.

The campaign has been an ongoing process and was started soon after the death of Simon. It has taken its case to the courts despite the avenues seemingly blocked at every point. It has also protested in the form of direct action, which has been a great help in raising the public’s awareness of the case.

The cause has been given prominence by writers and people in the public eye. Julie Birchall, in her ‘Weekend Guardian’ column highlighted the campaign and Mark Thomas, the comedian, raised the awareness of the campaign on his TV show, ‘The Mark Thomas’ product and his column in the New Statesman.

The campaign has recently produced a film called ’Not this time – The story of the Simon Jones Memorial Campaign’, which chronicles Simons first day as a casual worker and shows the campaign as it develops, involving direct action against the government agencies and departments that have thwarted their quest for justice.

The 25-minute film has recently gone on a 20-date tour, as a further way of increasing the awareness of the campaigns aims. The first date was at the Glastonbury festival, on 29th June on the same bill as Billy Bragg and Mark Thomas. Unions, safety campaigners, friends, direct action groups and many more organisations, have responded to campaign by setting up showings in halls, churches, cinemas and community centres across the country.

Colin Chambers, of the Simon Jones Memorial Campaign says that;
“The unique thing about this film tour is that it’s only happening because so many groups approached us wanting to show the film. There is a genuine concern in this country that the government isn’t doing nearly enough to protect passengers and workers from profiteering companies who don’t really care about anything but making a profit.

“ Simon’s death, and recent deaths of both passengers and casual workers on the railways, shows that casualisation kills. A lot of people find that unacceptable.”

One of the sad ironies of Simon’s death concerns the fact Simon was politically motivated throughout his life and he was keen activist and he campaigned on behalf of the Liverpool Dockers in their fight against the casualisation of its workforce.

He was also was a keen writer for SchuNews, the direct action’s weekly newsletter. Simon believed that if you sat back and waited for politicians you would have a very long wait. This is one of the beliefs that the memorial campaign has adopted with regard to the continuation of its struggle.

In 1998, the year of Simon’s death, there were 374 work related deaths in this country. It was witnessing figures like this, was no doubt inspired the formation of the memorial campaign, in the hope that Simon’s death would not just be another statistic alongside the other deaths of that year.

Sadly British law is such, that it is relatively difficult to prosecute any company or individual under the charge of corporate manslaughter. Having tried to seek recourse through the British courts, The Simon Jones Memorial Campaign has engaged in a course of direct action that has complemented its legal battles.

Earlier this year, David Blunkett, the home secretary, decided that passengers injured in rail crashes and workers hurt in industrial accidents will not be treated as victims of crime in the same way that other victims of crime are.

David Bergman, the director of the centre for corporate accountability says that victims of workplace and railway crashes are as much victims as much as someone who is a victim on the street.

“ Many of them suffer injuries, nevertheless it seems that not seen as a crime at the Health and Safety crime, though are promoting new rights to be extended to victims of road traffic accidents.”

The Home Office issued a statement, in which they claimed,

“ We are not bringing in a health and safety victims law at this stage although we have not ruled them out. After consulting our ministers we have decided to extend the bill of rights to the victims of road accidents because the implications are profound and far ranging.”


The introduction of a Corporate Manslaughter Act had been a manifesto pledge of the Labour Government; with it would bring the introduction of some form of policy for corporate accountability in relation to industrial injuries victims. We still wait for this to be introduced let alone to be discussed.

The odds have always been stacked against the campaign from the beginning. Before April 1998, the police were not formally required to investigate workplace deaths.

In this case, the local police had yet to be trained and the investigation started six weeks late. Investigations traditionally fall under the remit of the health and safety executive (HSE) but only 30% of the workplace deaths end in a prosecution. The HSE is chronically under-resourced and often criticised for its delays and a lack of transparency. Prosecutions usually have to focus on the culpability of companies rather than individuals, which lets them plead guilty and escape with relatively small fines while their directors remain unaccountable.

Cases that fall between the HSE and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), if the police decide that there is a criminal case to answer corporate manslaughter is difficult to prosecute.

In the last 50 years, there have been only three successful prosecutions in this country. Under current laws, a company can only be convicted of manslaughter, if a senior manager is prosecuted and found guilty as an individual.

Early in 1999, the Police had completed their investigation. At the start of April, the CPS announced, that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute Euromin or any senior manager for manslaughter. The HSE had also by this time completed its inquiries, but despite countless approaches, would not give reasons why Euromin had been allowed to operate in such a dangerous manner; why had it not been properly inspected and why it had been allowed to remain open?

The campaign approached Louise Christian, the solicitor who had had worked on a number of high-profile corporate manslaughter cases including the Ladbroke Grove and Paddington rail disasters, who decided to fight the case on behalf of the campaign.

Leave was granted in September 1999 and the following March, in a landmark case two high court judges overturned the CPS’s decision claiming that it had behaved irrationally in insisting that there was no realistic prospect of conviction they ordered it to reconsider its original verdict.

After a previous attempt to bring Euromin and James Martell to trial, November 7, 2001, saw the trial of James Martell the general manager of Euromin. The trial took place at the Old Bailey. On the November 29, Martell and Euromin where cleared of manslaughter by a majority verdict; but the company was found guilty of two lesser charges of breaching health and safety regulations, and fined £50,000.

Speaking after the courts verdict the campaign released a statement, putting forward their disappointment of the verdict,

“ We would not be human if we were not disappointed by the today’s not guilty verdicts. We had wished that James Martell and Euromin, would have been found guilty of Simon’s manslaughter and they have not.

They have however, been found guilty of serious crimes that show their criminal negligence led directly to Simon’s death. Some people may say these are minor crimes. We would say that there is nothing minor about crimes, that lead to the death of workers like Simon.”

They added, highlighting the success of the direct action campaigns,
“ Without direct action James Martell and Euromin would never have faced prosecution in the High Court for Simons death. This prosecution only took place because Simon’s family and friends broke the law.

As long as this government and its agencies, refuse to take action against companies that profit from casualisation at the expense of their workers lives, we will continue to break the law so that justice will prevail.”


As result of the case, the campaign now hope that the law is improved in the future by making it easier for similar work related deaths can be dealt with by the courts and hopefully lead to prosecutions.


Future plans for the campaign include looking at the possibility of prosecuting Personnel Selection, the recruitment agency that sent Simon to a work in an environment that was unsuitable for him to do so.

Without much help from the so-called ‘proper channels’. The campaign has resorted to direct action in trying to increase the awareness of the campaign as well as trying to present their case to the relevant agencies.

The first direct action took place on 1st September 1998, on what would have been Simon’s 25th birthday, 30 protesters occupied the Shoreham dock where Simon was killed. They unfurled banners bearing the logo ‘casualisation kills, this action resulted in the closure of the dock for a day and the casual workforce was sent home on full pay.

Two days later, the Brighton office of Personnel Selection, was also occupied and again resulted in the closure of the office for the day. Passers by where leafleted and no doubt managed to spot the ‘murderers’ banner that was unfurled from the first floor office.

On 3rd March, the Labour MP George Galloway tabled a question in the House of Commons concerning the casualisation of labour. He spoke at length about the case. The same day the DTI buildings where occupied by the campaigners and all workers where evacuated when a fire alarm was ‘some how activated’ this enabled campaigners to leaflet the bemused staff of the DTI who where mingling outside the office.

Then one year after the death of Simon Jones. The campaign descended on the Health and Safety Executive, to put their case forward.

Having written to the Health and Safety Executive, on numerous occasions, with no response. The campaign decided to protest outside the Health and Safety Executive. Ann Jones, Simons mother laid a wreath at the doorway. When their request to speak to Jenny Bacon, the Chief Executive of the Health and Safety, fell on deaf ears, the 30 campaigners walked on to Southwark Bridge, and stopped the traffic for three hours. Jenny Bacon finally relented to an audience with Ann Jones, who bafflingly said to Ann ‘Why didn’t you write.’

Little by little this direct action has brought the campaign to the consciousness of a largely ignorant nation. The direct action campaign indeed brought about the Crown Prosecution Services u-turn as to whether they had a case that could be brought before a court of law. Colin Chambers, friend and campaigner, highlights the need for direct action,

“ Direct action basically grew out of the inaction of the left and the unions. As one of the Liverpool Dockers said when we occupied Euromin, ‘A few years ago it would have been workers coming out that shut that dock, not protesters going in.’

Direct action is seen as something slightly eccentric, admirable, but ‘single-issue’, cut off from real politics. Where as in fact that it’s just doing what working class and progressive organisations have always done, but have now been effectively stopped from doing with a carrot and stick.

Its pretty scary that protesting when some capitalist bastard kills your mate is considered as unusual.”

Another sad irony for the Simon Jones Memorial Campaign is that no one has been arrested for the death of Simon. But that four protesters have been committed for trial as a result of their part in a protest at Shoreham Dock, which was staged to draw attention to the ongoing concerns with regards to health and safety at the Euromin owned dock.

Farah Bishani, Crispin Dowler, Sarah McLaughlin, and Carly North all from Brighton, have been charged under section 241 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (consolidation) Act 1992 following the protest on 3rd December 2001. Originally the date of the trial was 29th July, but this has been adjourned until September. If convicted they face up a maximum six months sentence.

Colin Chambers of the Memorial Campaign believes,

“ This dock is a death trap and now four people face going to jail for trying to get the authorities to do something about it. When we approached the Health and Safety Executive with first hand evidence of their own safety rules being broken. We were told we were ‘wasting a lot of their time with this’. ”

He further adds,
“It’s almost impossible to end up in court for killing your employees in this country. Since Simon’s death n 1998 over 2000 people have been killed at work and no director has gone to jail.

Now we see Thatcher’s anti-picketing laws being used against campaigners for who are trying to get safety laws enforced. We don’t think that trying to save lives is a crime and that is a point we will be making very forcibly in court”

Like the campaigners in the Hillsborough fight for justice campaigns the Simon Jones Memorial Campaign having sought recourse to the British Law, have yet to have their questions answered. One thing that the campaign knows is that they cannot bring Simon back, but what they can do is stop the same thing happening to future Simon Jones’s.

The sad fact that it is still happening today, as the Guardian of Saturday 24th August 2002, reports another workplace fatality of a 38 year old, man in Bradford. It is a fact that people are employed to carry dangerous jobs and that accidents can happen. But when corners are cut for the sake of profit, then it is hard to call it an accidental death.