Four charged after mum killed by falling bricks on her way to son's nursery

May 15, 2025 UK News views: 10

Michaela Boor was critically injured when she was struck by the falling bricks

Four construction workers have been charged with manslaughter over the death of a mum who was killed by falling bricks in East London.

Michaela Boor was en route to her son Kieran’s nursery on March 29,2018,when more than two tonnes of bricks tumbled five storeys from a building development in Bethnal Green,East London.

Paramedics attempted to save the 28-year-old’s life as she lay among the rubble,but she died in hospital two days later.

Her life support had to be switched off by her family a day after her 29th birthday when she was declared brain-dead.

Bow corner building site on Burdett road,Mile End,East London where a pallet of bricks fell five storeys (Picture: Steve Bell/REX/Shutterstock)

After a seven year investigation,the construction company and four workers at the site have been charged.

These include the crane operator,Alexander McInnes,32,as well as the crane supervisor,Dawood Maan,59.

Stephen Coulson,68,who was in charge of the lifting plan on the building site,and site manager Thomas Anstis,have also been charged.

A year after her death,Michaela’s mother Alaina described the devastation her son Kieran,just 4 at the time,had to face in the wake of the tragedy.

The building site where the tragedy unfolded (Picture: Steve Bell/REX/Shutterstock)

She told MailOnline: ‘‘Kieran knows that mummy is gone,that she got hurt and the doctors could not fix her.

‘He thinks mummy is a star in the sky,he blows kisses to her.

‘He is pretty resilient but he does get sad. And every day I have to walk with him past the spot that his mother was killed.

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‘How is he going to cope with looking at that when he is older?’

Alaina faced her own horror after Michaela’s death as she had to make the agonizing decision to switch off life support after visiting her in hospital.

She added: ‘When they finally let us see her,I could hardly recognise her,she had so many tubes sticking out of her.

‘The doctors told us that she was brain-dead and said we should turn off her life-support.

‘But I couldn’t do it. I begged them to let us keep her for one more day because the next day was her birthday.’

Michaela was eventually laid to rest a month later at Manor Park crematorium in east London.

The four men have been charged with gross negligence manslaughter and offences under section 7 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

The company Higgins Homes PLC faces charges of corporate manslaughter and offences under Section 3 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

The defendants are due to appear at Westminster magistrates’ court on June 16.

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