Engineer accuses lawyer of keeping bridge reports secret

The engineer whose confidential "Berryman bridge" report was posted on the internet has accused lawyer Rob Moodie of keeping secret two other reports that cast a different light on the fatal bridge collapse, the Dominion Post reported today.

George Butcher, who investigated the 1994 bridge collapse at the Berryman farm, spoke publicly for the first time yesterday about his report, which was put on the internet by Dr Moodie in apparent defiance of a court order.

Mr Butcher, a retired civil engineer and former army colonel, challenged Dr Moodie also to make public a 1994 Works Consultancy report on the mishap and an affidavit Mr Butcher prepared last year for a court case taken by Dr Moodie on behalf of retired farmers Keith and Margaret Berryman.

He described the documents as "Moodie's own secret reports" and said they showed that the Berrymans, not just the army, had made errors that contributed to the collapse, which killed beekeeper Ken Richards.

But Dr Moodie said he did not have the Works Consultancy report and the affidavit was "not relevant".

Dr Moodie has been seeking compensation for the Berrymans, who lost their King Country farm in the aftermath of Mr Richards' death. They turned down as inadequate a Government offer of $150,000.

When the High Court ruled he could not use the "Butcher Report" to seek a new inquest into Mr Richards' death because it was a confidential document from an army court of inquiry, Dr Moodie put it on the internet, prompting the army to accuse him of contempt of court.

The army has just released Mr Butcher from a confidentiality agreement not to talk about his report.

At his home near Masterton yesterday, he showed the Dominion Post a copy of the April 1994 Works Consultancy report and his October 2004 affidavit.

The Works report, obtained by the Berrymans immediately after the army-built wooden suspension bridge collapsed, identifies the cause as rot and decay that it says were clearly visible on the transom beams that gave way as Mr Richards drove across it.

Mr Butcher said the Berrymans gave a copy of the document to the army in 1994 and it had been invaluable in compiling his report.

Dr Moodie said last month that the army was solely responsible for the collapse because Mr Butcher's formerly confidential report said the soldiers who built the bridge failed to "flash" the untreated wooden transoms, letting in moisture.

But Mr Butcher said yesterday that the causes were more than that and included the Berrymans' not having a protocol for inspecting and maintaining the bridge, and Mr Richards' driving too fast across it in his overladen ute.

The affidavit that Mr Butcher said Dr Moodie should have made public agrees that the way the transoms were made shortened their life.

"However, I am sure that inspection by Mr Berryman would have detected decay," it says.

Dr Moodie said yesterday that the affidavit was irrelevant and assisted no one. What mattered was what Mr Butcher wrote in his 1994 report.

Dr Moodie said he had never seen the Works Consultancy report.

But Mrs Berryman said Dr Moodie had been given a copy of that report. Perhaps he had forgotten it or overlooked it among the many documents he had been given on the case.

The report was obtained from Works Consultancy not to assign blame for the collapse, but because the couple needed to repair the bridge urgently as it was the access to their farm over the Retaruke River.

She had given it to the army as it had no information on the incident and needed it for its court of inquiry.

Mrs Berryman said the report was not provided to the 1997 coroner's inquest, which largely blamed her husband for the state of the bridge.

Attorney-General Michael Cullen has asked Solicitor-General Terence Arnold, QC, to investigate if a new inquest should be ordered.

- nzpa