A construction firm has admitted corporate manslaughter after a police officer and his TV producer partner plunged to their deaths on a building site.
PC Gavin Brewer, 32, and his boyfriend Stuart Meads, 34, fell through hoardings and into a half-built basement apartment on Hampstead Road, north London on October 19, 2013.
The couple had been rowing and fell against the unsecured hoarding during a physical struggle.
Broad Green-based Monavon Construction Ltd, which was carrying out the work on the flat admitted two counts of corporate manslaughter on Monday.
The firm also admitted failing to discharge its duty to persons other than employees in breach of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.
Director Michael McGowan, 49, denied “consenting or conniving” in a failure to discharge a duty other than to employees.
The charge was left to lie on file.
Prosecutor Oliver Glasgow QC said: “It’s a fall through a light-well in the pavement, two men returning home walking past a hoarding on a building site.
“They were involved in some form of dispute and while in a struggle they fell against the barrier intended to provide protection.
“They then fell into the basement.
“The barrier gave way and they fell through the opening into the basement and to their deaths below.”
Mr Meads, who worked for BBC’s The Weakest Link, and PC Brewer, who worked for British Transport Police, both died from their injuries.
The company will be sentenced on May 21.
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