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I resigned from Allgas due to concerns over attitudes to safety that built up during the last months of my 9-month employment at Allgas. I was given a written warning for arguing with the son in law of the owner. He was trying to force me to fit a califont to a spa. It had “do not fit to a spa” written on the box of the califont. Apparently, it was ok though because he’d had one of the main bosses of the califont manufactures around for a BBQ, this pretty much summed up Allgas’ attitude to gasfitting. It was all about who you knew, not what you know.
Finally, later that month, this came to a head when I asked for specifications/schematics for the installation of a central heating (C/H) system that was heated by a califont. I am ex British Gas and this idea contravened all my previous training and experience.
The said califont had the same ring main supplying both the hot water outlets AND C/H radiators off the same ring main. The C/H radiators being controlled by TRV’s (thermostatic radiator valves), these TRV’s open when the room calls for it by temperature drop. So, water held stagnant in the rads for a whole warm Nelson summer, will be released into the ring main when it gets cooler outside. With the hot water out lets connected to the same ring main, the most concerning being the shower rose, atomising any bacteria to be inhaled. Legionnaires would be a very real concern. As far as I am aware it’s still there.
His reply to my request for specifications was the final straw…”just use poker face and pretend you know what your doing”. I told him in no uncertain terms what he could do with his job. He then bought 4 books of gas certs in my name with his credit card. As soon as I went self-employed, I came across dodgy certs covering dangerous work and informed the PGDB straight away. I was told there were over 1000 certs in my name and it would cost $25 to see each one, I didn’t have 25k to hand. There were actually less than 100 certs at the time, some 89 from memory.
Later after the explosion, I asked the investigator about this purchase of 4 books in my name (purchased without my permission or knowledge), he didn’t have a problem with it at all and showed me copies of all the certs in my name, photocopied on pink paper with black ink. This method of photocopying I later discovered concealed the fact that added information done to my gas certs, after my signature, was done in different colour pens… blues and reds, I think even a green from memory.
The PGDB’s investigator was in possession of all this evidence from the very start, but then went on to investigate many years of all my work (as stated in a PGDB letter written by a PGDB lawyer after my hearing), but publicly and officially the investigator claiming only a small % of my work was investigated at the hearing. Giving a slanted representation of my work. When measured against the one charge that stuck, it shows the level of my work.
My involvement in this sham of an investigation should have stopped right at the beginning, I had come forward voluntarily as I had all my fears come to fruition with the explosion. But I suppose as the investigator had gifted Darnley his full craftsman/certifying license after one “oral” exam, he probably thought it may reflect badly on the investigator personally. Also, the fact that this failure of the cert system was evident, a system the investigator had lobbied for in his “deregulation” papers. Impartial is not a word that I would use to describe him.
We had had an impartiality hearing previously on the 22 Feb before my hearing 3 May, where we aired our concerns about the obvious conflicts of interest, we were ignored.
All sites of charges (except the chip shop) were prejudiced with letters claiming the “untruth” that I was issuing illegal gas certs in the North Island; I had never worked in the North Island up until that date. This letter was allowed to stand for many months and put the final nail in my business’ coffin, especially the letter sent to the Motueka high school.
These un-true letters were finally rescinded (but the damage was done). Rescinded, because they could have been “worded better” … i.e. to contain the truth and not untruths I suppose. I am not allowed to call them lies. Ironically, I have been forced to work in the North Island since to support my family, missing many years with my family and my lads growing up. This hurts the most above all else.
Then just a very short time before the hearing, after nearly a two-year investigation, 50% of the charges were amended, i.e. totally changed. We (Wal and myself) still saw 42 out of the 44 charges off. Helped very much by Wal’s irrepressible search for truth.
I later found out that John Darnley’s charge for the chip shop explosion, the charge that prevented me sharing the same hearing and any opportunity of cross examination, just disappeared before his hearing, gone … poof in a cloud of dust….please can you explain how this happens?
Also see the handwriting expert’s opinion on Darnley’s hand writing being added to my job sheet for the fryers at the explosion. In all probability done when they were installed, with the bayonets lowered to accommodate their installation.
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Topic: Fellow Practitioner Issue 236 Dated 12 December 2014 (Read 233598 times)
December 10, 2014, 09:43:07 AM