A HEARTBROKEN widow is suing for £200,000 after her husband was crushed to death by a pop-up urinal.
Kevin Holding, 60, was carrying out repairs in London when the urinal “suddenly and without warning dropped and fell onto him”.
At the time, the worker was in an inspection chamber below the retractable toilet unit, manufactured by Dutch company Urilift.
The pop-up urinals are designed to be lowered below ground during the day then raised up for use by revellers at night using hydraulic power.
Kevin’s long-term partner Katrina Woods has now launched a six-figure damages claim over his death against his employers, Hi-Tech Washrooms Solutions Ltd.
Her barrister Simon Brindle claims Kevin’s bosses were at fault after failing to provide adequate training.
Court papers also accused the company of failing to properly maintain the urinal which ended up killing him.
Mr Brindle said: “The urinal dropped as a result of a catastrophic failure of a fitting in its hydraulic system.
“The fitting failed due to excessive corrosion”.
He argued that through poor maintenance, the company allowed the fitting to become “excessively corroded” and also failed to replace it in time to avoid the tragedy.
But Hi-Tech Washrooms Solutions has denied any liability and insists another company was tasked with maintaining the urinal.
Although they have acknowledged the tragedy probably occurred due to corrosion in the hydraulic system, defence barrister, Anna Symington, said: “The defendant was not responsible for the maintenance of the hydraulic system; further the defendant was not a specialist hydraulic contractor.
“Hi-teach Washrooms had no responsibility for the fitting and could not reasonably have been aware of its corroded nature.”
The company also claims Kevin was an experienced and well trained operator who “contributed” to the accident through his own negligence in “failing to take sufficient care for his own safety”.
Ms Symington said he was at faulty by “failing to lower the urinal before commencing work inside the inspection chamber”, trying to replace the urinal’s water pump while the urinal was raised, and in failing to seek help if he felt it was necessary.
An inquest previously heard Kevin was killed by the device in January 2023 outside the Palace Theatre in Central London when it toppled over as he worked on it.
He was declared dead at the scene two hours after he became trapped in the “void”.
A post-mortem revealed his cause of death to be asphyxiation due to compression.
The case has yet to reach court and be tested in evidence before a judge.
