Coventry City fan investigated by employer after sick jibe at Bradford City fans (16 Viewers)

Nick said:

Awful reading that, live on TV as well.

Imagine watching a game on TV with a family member there.

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I saw it live on TV. Was near the end of the game IIRC. The commentator was wondering at first if the game would finish. Then suddenly the whole stand went up. But it didn't look that serious at first.

rupert_bear said:

The Bradford fire. I have seen the complete footage of it during a safety briefing a few years ago, unbelievable really from the first puff of smoke to the whole stand being engulfed in flames is less than 4 minutes.

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I used it as a safety briefing years ago when I did H&S. I warned everyone what I was putting on and that they were free to leave. A fair few did. After seeing the effect it had on some people I never used that video again. Not prepared to go into detail on here. Was horrific.

Grendel said:

You should at least read the book, or the serialisation of it and then see what your view is.

The CPS did I believe consider a manslaughter charge.

The person who survived and wrote the book did enormous research on the subject.

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Manslaughter...or corporate manslaughter? Which would be a neglect of duty or negligence, for instance allowing the rubbish to accumulate creating a fire hazard.

That is a long way from deliberate arson.

Nick said:

I read that, but then I thought why on a match day?

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Two things that spring to straight to mind here. The first is that almost by definition a serial arsonist isn't likely to be entirely careful when it comes to peoples' lives - at least one of the other fires occurred during working hours with people in the factory. Even when the fires took place with no one present, there was no doubt that dealing with them put the lives of firemen at risk.

Similarly, the story of the day tells that the gates at the back of the main stand were left unlocked - unusuallly so apparently. If it was arson, could it be that the person responible assumed that he'd left an adequate escape route. Like I say, eight serious fires happening to the businesses of one man, and him apparently netting very substantial sums as a result have to make you wonder. We'll never know the truth, but Fletcher (who wrote the book that the Guardian quotes) makes a strong case, imho.

Against that, it seems that many Bradford fans accept that it was just a terrible accident. Some parts of Fletcher's narrative have been challenged. Like I say, the truth is that we'll never know, but it is a worrying story.

The twat should be forced to watch that youtube video on repeat for a day... cretin.