Wollongong man Peter Whittall won’t face any more charges over the 2010 Pike River Mine disaster despite a ruling in the New Zealand Supreme Court.
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The court ruled a 2013 deal between WorkSafe NZ and Mr Whittall was unlawful. WorkSafe had dropped the charges against Mr Whittall in return for him paying about $3.1 million to survivors and victims’ families.
The court decision came seven years and five days after the mine, on the west coast of New Zealand’s south island, exploded.
Mr Whittall, who was the CEO of Pike River Coal, had faced 12 charges under health and safety laws, which he said he would defend. After he offered to make the payment (from an insurer) WorkSafe decided not to proceed with the prosecution.
The Supreme Court ruled this was an “unlawful agreement to stifle prosecution”.
I screamed ... I just can't believe it. It's wonderful.
- Sonya Rockhouse
Mr Whittall was born in Wollongong, educated at UOW and worked in Illawarra mines for many years. Three years after the 2011 Pike River Royal Commission he returned to Wollongong and in 2015 joined the Illawarra Diggers aged care centre, where he is now CEO.
He bought a house in Austinmer with partner Angela Horne, the former financial controller of Pike River Coal.
On Friday Mr Whittall, through a representative, declined to comment.
Sonya Rockhouse, who lost her 21-year-old son Ben in the disaster, and Anna Osborne, who lost her husband Milton, began court action in 2014 to review the WorkSafe decision.
Ms Osborne said Thursday's “huge victory” was “a long time coming” and felt “bloody great”.
“I've always called it blood money. You should never be able to buy your way out of charges,” she said.
Ms Rockhouse called the decision a “moral victory”. She was at work, teaching a class, when she got the news.
“I screamed,” she said. “I just can't believe it. It's wonderful.”
The Supreme Court decision, released on Thursday, does not mean Whittall will be charged. An order to require the prosecution to proceed was no longer an option due to the passage of time, the court said.
The Pike River Royal Commission found in 2013 that high gas readings were not properly assessed in the mine, and “the response to warning signs of an explosion risk was inadequate”.
“At the executive manager level there was a culture of production before safety at Pike River and as a result signs of the risk of an explosion were either not noticed or not responded to,” the Royal Commission concluded.
Mr Whittall is not Wollongong’s only link to the Pike River disaster – the mine was partly owned by Arun Jagatramka’s Gujarat NRE companies, which at the time owned and operated the collieries at Russell Vale and Wongawilli.
