Two men guilty of school asbestos fraud

Two men colluded with each other to commit fraud by falsifying a record stating that a school in Abingdon had been properly cleaned of asbestos. The unusual fraud was confirmed by detective work by one of the men’s employers using GPS tracking technology on the employee’s company van.

The deception by the two men was uncovered after an engineer went to Our Lady’s Abingdon school to start plumbing work but could see that asbestos material had been left, putting him and others at risk of exposure to dangerous fibres. He reported it to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which investigated and brought a prosecution against both men.

Ricky Gray, an asbestos analyst, of Hoddesdon, Herts, and David Gray (no relation), of Botley, Oxford, a supervisor for a licensed asbestos contractor, had committed the offence on Sunday 25th July 2010, probably just to escape a few hours’ work. HSE found David Gray’s employer, Maylarch Environmental Ltd, had been hired to carry out an environmental clean of the area affected by asbestos between 21th and 25th July. Ricky Gray’s employer, environmental consultants Tersus Ltd, had been contracted to provide a final independent assessment of the clean-up on 25th July, which is required for all asbestos removal work.

Tersus used GPS tracking and found that Ricky Gray’s van had been driven to a service station at Junction 8 on the M40 and back to his home address on 25 July - not to the school site where the assessment was due to take place. He later admitted he had met David Gray there and together they had fabricated the clearance report to make it look as though the assessment had been carried out.