“Faced with the pain of a family, the indignation at the fact that one could die in the workplace, and the extremely technical discussions on the causes of the accident, we must always prioritize the victimslaunches the public prosecutor, Catherine Sorita-Minard, at the opening of her indictment at the Tours criminal court, Tuesday April 9. Benjamin was a young, inexperienced man who should have been supported and trained by his employer. »
Benjamin Gadreau died on February 28, 2022 at the age of 23, following a fall of thirteen meters, after slipping on a gutter. Employed for a year by the roofing company Quinet, he worked on the roof of a collective housing building in Chinon (Indre-et-Loire). The company is being prosecuted for involuntary manslaughter, lack of adequate collective protection, and provision of work equipment without information or training.
In court, the victim’s relatives are surrounded by around ten families from the Stop Death at Work collective, which her mother Caroline Dilly co-founded at the end of 2022. These parents or spouses of victims have gotten into the habit of going to the process to support each other, accompanied by banners and clothing bearing the image of the deceased.
The course of events is typical of the risks that roofers regularly take. With his team leader, Benjamin Gadreau has the day to change part of the gutters located at the corner of the building, and replace some slates on the roof. They use a mobile lifting platform, equipment that allows them to work safely “provided that the work tasks are carried out from inside the basket basket”according to the labor inspectorate.
That’s the problem: the team leader and Benjamin both get out of the basket, because the roof is sloping and they cannot carry out their work from there. It was while getting back in that the young man, without protection, slipped and fell.
The deputy director of labor in Indre-et-Loire Bruno Rousseau, who speaks on behalf of the labor inspector who followed the case – now retired – is categorical: “It was “mission impossible” to work safely with two people in this basket. The employer failed to assess the risks and take the necessary measures to ensure the health of its workers. We haven’t even found any internal regulations. » The deceased roofer was not trained to work on this type of machine.
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