Retired colonel details bridge problems

An engineer who investigated the fatal collapse of an Army-built bridge said King Country farmers Keith and Margaret Berryman should have seen it was rotting.

Retired colonel George Butcher yesterday issued 40 pages of documents providing more detail about why he thought the bridge failed 11 years ago, killing beekeeper Ken Richards.

Mr Butcher has previously blamed both poor maintenance and the decision to use untreated timber on structural parts of the bridge for its collapse. Now, in a lengthy statement, he has called for the Army as an institution to accept it failed to properly support the inexperienced engineer who in 1986 led the design and construction of the bridge leading on to the Berrymans' farm. The bridge collapsed eight years later.

Mr Butcher completed a report for the Army into the failure, which was released last week. But he has now said he does not agree with the Army telling the Coroner in 1997 that in a "causative sense" there was nothing wrong in the entire construction of the bridge which might have led to its failure.

The Solicitor General is considering if there should be a new Coroner's inquiry, after publicity surrounding the Army's failure to tell the original inquest about Mr Butcher's findings.

Initially the Coroner, who heard evidence about the bridge's decay, advised the Army it would be criticised because of the engineer's inexperience and for failing to put in place a proper maintenance programme for the Berrymans when they took over control of the bridge.

The Army responded by laying complete responsibility for maintenance on the Berrymans, and denying there was anything wrong with the bridge's construction. The Coroner accepted most of its submissions.

However, Mr Butcher had already told the Army the decision to use untreated oregon timber on transoms, which run under the suspension bridge, holding its weight, was wrong.

Although the Berrymans bought the timber, the young Army engineer in charge, who has name suppression, agreed to use it.

Mr Butcher also criticised the Berrymans' failure to properly maintain the bridge, which they knew was in poor repair, and questioned Mr Richards' decision to drive over the bridge with a fully loaded utility against Mr Berryman's advice.

Mr Butcher has in his statement defended the Army engineer who designed the bridge, and supervised most of its construction.

He said a system failure let the engineer and his soldiers down.