Foster + Partners cleared over man's death from falling penthouse window

The architecture firm Foster + Partners, founded by renowned architect Norman Foster, has been exonerated in the death of a coach driver who was killed by a falling window from a luxury London penthouse. Mick Ferris, 53, died in 2018 when a 130kg window detached from The Corniche development and fell 90 meters to the street below.

However, the project managers, St James, and the project's engineers, Lindner Prater, were found guilty of safety breaches by a jury at Inner London crown court. The court heard that designers should have considered the risks associated with outward-opening, side-hung windows. Crucially, a similar window panel had fallen from the same development just over a year before Ferris's death, yet no design modifications were implemented as a result.

The prosecution, brought by the Health and Safety Executive, argued that Ferris's death was foreseeable and that concerns about the danger of outward-opening windows had been ignored. After deliberating for over 11 hours, the jury cleared Foster + Partners and the building's design engineers, Wintech Ltd. They found St James and Lindner Prater had failed in their duty to ensure public safety under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

Prosecutors highlighted "missed opportunities" where designers should have assessed the risks of the specific window type. The jury was informed that a restrictor intended to prevent the window from blowing off had been removed, and designers had not accounted for the potential "catastrophic" consequences if the restrictor failed or if the window was pried from its hinges. All four defendants had denied the charges, asserting they had taken all reasonably practicable safety measures.

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wasn’t an accident waiting to happen … it was an accident that had already happened in August 2017. The prosecution say it was an accident waiting to happen again.