A vigil for 85-year-old June Harvey, who was killed when a 60ft crane crashed down onto her home, is being held today (July 8) on the first anniversary of the tragedy.
Neighbours return to Compton Close, next to the Watts Grove building site in Bromley-by-Bow, for the remembrance outside her terraced cottage at noon.
June’s niece Jacqueline and grand-nephew Sam Atkinson, who were both injured when the towering crane toppled through their roof on July 8 last year, are demanding answers after months in hotels and bed and breakfasts for them and their neighbours.
Their homes are still unsafe after 12 months and will have to be rebuilt, resulting in what could be years more of waiting to return.
Meanwhile a police and health and safety investigation is underway into what caused the crane to fall.
“Their lives have been turned upside down,” the Atkinson’s lawyer Helen Clifford said. “They still don’t know what went wrong or why.”
Today's first anniversary vigil for June is outside her wrecked house, organised by Families Against Corporate Killers and the Construction Safety Campaign. They are calling for justice for June to highlight a need for better crane safety.
Sam Atkinson said on the day he survived the crash: “I was screaming for my mum and my aunt and tried pushing through the rubble, but it was impossible. The whole house was crumbling around me.”
The safety crisis was later raised in Parliament where MPs called for tougher measures for construction site cranes during a heated Commons debate in March.
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