15 year ordeal spelt out by businessman following death of four men in industrial accident

Heartbreaking, emotional, inspirational and uplifting.

Just four words to describe the roller coaster ride Matthew Hazelton has put himself through over 15 years of pain and devastation.

He lost his two brothers Daniel and Thomas along with close friends Peter Johnson and Adam Taylor after a steel cage collapsed onto them in an industrial accident in Norfolk.

And on the 15th anniversary, to the exact day of the incident, Matthew took to the stage at an event he organised, along with his partner Lucy Smith, held at Portman Road, in Ipswich.

He said how he had lost thousands of pounds as a result of the accident, suffered a “massive” breakdown in his life and was “desperately broken” but it’s taken him 15 years to feel “really happy in myself again” and is now “incredibly lucky in life.”

He has linked up with Proud2bSafe, which provides motivational speakers on topics around safety, health and wellbeing in the workplace, taking his experiences round the country and into Europe.

The Suffolk Safety Day was attended by over 200 people, including many of his close family and friends, along with businesses around the county involved in the building and construction industry.

It also featured a series of other speakers from the sector who spoke about safety, wellbeing, resilience, leadership and culture in the workplace.

Motivational former British, Commonwealth and European lightweight and the IBO World Light Welter-weight Champion Billy Schwer, from Luton, also took part along with one time Nottingham Forest, Manchester United, Millwall, Middlesbrough, Stoke City, Fulham, Sheffield Wednesday, Oldham Athletic, Chesterfield and Welsh international goalkeeper Mark Crossley, who spoke about his wonderful relationship with the outspoken Forest manager Brian Clough.

Guests were treated to a three course meal and there was also an awards presentation.

The 47-year-old, who was living in Stanton at the time of the accident on January 15, 2011, lost his two brothers Thomas, 26, and Daniel, 30, along with 42-year-old Peter, all from the village, plus  Adam, 28, from Rickinghall, when a large steel pressure testing cage they were working in at Claxton Engineering, in Great Yarmouth, collapsed.

Two construction firms were fined at the Old Bailey after being charged under the Health and Safety at Work Act, while health and safety charges against a third company, Hazegood Construction Ltd, were left to lie on file.

Matthew, Daniel and friend Neil Gooderham were founder partners of groundworks firm Hazegood Construction Ltd, which was dissolved in 2018.

The Four Friends Memorial Fund was set up by the East Anglian Daily Times and raised £35,000 to support the families of the four men and also created a lasting memorial to them which is situated at The Cock pub in Stanton.

Matthew, who now lives in Leiston, said he chose the exact day of the anniversary for Suffolk Safety Day, adding he wanted it to be a “lasting legacy for these guys to have a mark on these industries in Suffolk”.

He said the aim of the event, which he described as “very humbling”, was to raise more awareness around safety in the work place and to keep the boys’ names being used to help people avoid going through what his families had to go through.

Matthew said he now felt the best mentally that he had since the accident, but it had taken nearly 15 years to reach that point.

He outlined how he initially set up Hazegood Construction, in the lead up to the accident, the trauma of having to telephone family and friends about the incident, how he was experienced cash flows and the many low points in his life.

He said: “Had I not fell into doing this [public speaking] and found a way to clear my head I really, really don’t think that I wouldn’t have the life of privilege that I have now.

“Fifteen years ago I was stood on site waiting to get down to see those boys and I hope nobody ever has to make those phone calls and I hope nobody ever has to receive those phone calls because if you do, trust me, you’re life will never ever, ever be the same again.”

PART OF MATTHEW’S TALK

“The time scales of the day are a bit blurred but it was sometime around lunchtime and my phone rings … and the contractors said ‘Matt there’s been an accident. It’s serious, you need to get here straight away.’

“I was working about 40, 45 minutes away from the accident site and I jumped in my van and started to make my way to that site.

“At this point I didn’t know the severity, the implications, the consequences, all I knew there had been an incident on one of our sites.

“I had to ring PJ’s family, I had to ring ‘J’, Adam’s brother, I had to ring my mum, I had to ring my dad and I had to ring both of my sister-in-laws.

“When I was finally able to get hold of the site manager he said ‘Matt, it’s not good. PJ and Adam are in the ambulance getting CPR, your brothers are still trapped.’

“Despite hearing the fear, the anxiety, the panic in that site agent’s voice I remember driving there and the same things keep going round and round and round in my head.

“Don’t panic, everything will be fine, it doesn’t happen to me.

“As I was getting close to the accident site it was beginning to turn to dusk … the sky was blue with emergency services.

“I wanted to see exactly what had caused it but nobody would let me near it, nobody would tell me anything.

“Eventually a policeman comes over and says ‘I’m really sorry Mr Hazelton but PJ and Adam died in the ambulance and your brothers are still trapped but they won’t be coming out alive.’

“The cage went over crushing them. After all these years there still stuff that’s a direct consequence of that direct moment in time.”

He said that “every single” journalists from the tabloid newspaper flocked to Stanton “banging” on the doors of the dead men’s families which went on “day after day after day” with the press and media in the centre of the village.

“We had to face the fact that we were directors of a company that had four fatalities and we had no idea what was about to happen to us,” he continued.

“We were arrested and had to go to the police station just like any other criminal.

“It was an awful period of our lives and a prosecution that took six-and-a-half years to get to court.

“We lost tens and tens and tens of thousands of pounds in that accident and from having a good stable business were were left with a business that was totally ‘screwed’.

“We had to make a decision to go back to work but it was tough and we had to take a job on 150 yards from that accident site and I had to drive past there twice a day for a month just to keep the roofs over our heads and the money trickling in.

“I had to try and make a success of myself to warrant them boys dying whilst working with us so I started up on my own and I could never, never, never find the same love, that same passion, that same bounce in my stride that I had for Hazegood Construction.

“But I was in this vicious circle going round and round and round and everything was stopping at the same thing, anger.

“I was angry about everything. Wrong socks put out for me, angry. Carrots undercooked, angry. It didn’t matter what it was I was angry.

“I mentally battered my wife into submission and her and the kids moved out and that’s when the wheels really came off. Inside I was desperately broken. Inside I was desperately lonely.

“The week of the fifth anniversary of the accident I was driving down a road I had driven down hundreds of times.

“There’s little triggers that sends my head off on a tangent. Even now especially at dark or dusk if I see blue flashing lights sends me right back to that vision I gave you earlier and the worst thing are the pieces of music synonymous to that time.

“So I’m driving down the road and song comes on the radio, my head went off on one and I want straight over a crossroads and hit a Transit van.

“I was a bit bust up but I was alright but one of my passengers was really badly cut to her face but thankfully after a while she was okay. My other passenger they thought was okay but a bit later it turned out she had broken her neck but thankfully after a while she was okay.

“You see it was the driver of the Transit. Policeman comes over to me and says ‘I’m really sorry Mr Hazelton, it’s highly, highly unlikely he’s going to survive.”

“I was in bits. It looked like it was going to cost someone else their life. The ambulance came, whisked the guy off to hospital and thank God they did manage to save him.

“I knew I had to sort myself out before I hurt anyone else. I had to try and fight it all with everything that I had but everything caught up with me and it done me and there was nothing I could do to stop it and I ended up having a massive breakdown.

“But it’s taken me 15 years to feel really happy in myself again.

“I can never really ever give back to my mum what she really wants and I will always feel guilty for that and I absolutely hated myself.

“Me regaining my love of construction was a massive part of me getting back into myself and all of a sudden I could see clearer, I could get my drive back, my love back, my passion back, and all of a sudden I started to get this sort of momentum.

“I’ve got interests in four businesses now … and I run a construction business. I’m incredibly lucky in life.

“Had I not fell into doing this (public speaking) and found a way to clear my head I really, really don’t think that I wouldn’t have the life of privilege that I have now.

“Fifteen years ago I was stood on site waiting to get down to see those boys and I hope none of you ever have to make those phone calls and I hope none of you ever have to receive those phone calls because if you do, trust me, you’re life will never ever, ever be the same again.”

AWARDS

SHEQ team Award: Breheny.

Individual Award: Mark Chenery, from Howard Construction.

Youngster Award: Megan Hawkins, from Volker Fitzpatrick.

Community Award: Alex Hitch, from Kier.

Company Award: Ashwell Construction

Four Friends Award, for those who have gone above and beyond in the cause of safety for their organisation in Suffolk: Simon Massey, Volker Fitzpatrick.