A widow said she plans to take legal action against an electricity company after her husband was electrocuted as he pruned hedges near a substation in Cheshire.
Father-of-two Blair Campbell, 35, was working at a house in Mobberley in 2022 when his tools touched live electricity wires that were covered in ivy and could not be seen.
“He made his coffee, said goodbye, gave us a kiss and left. And then he never walked back through that door again,” his wife, Tina Campbell, said.
SP Energy Networks, which maintains the substation, said it has since updated its health and safety policy.
Mr Campbell had moved to the UK from New Zealand after meeting his wife.
He set up Blue Kiwi Gardens and Maintenance following the coronavirus pandemic.
The inquest at Cheshire Coroner’s Court heard there had been an inspection of the pole-mounted substation two months before Mr Campbell was killed.
It identified “severe ivy” and said the power would need to be turned off to strip it away, but no “immediate hazard” was raised with SP Energy Networks’ control room.
The inquest heard the dense ivy obscured Mr Campbell’s view and he was unaware of the danger.
A yellow sign warning of a danger of death was also obscured.
Mrs Campbell said her husband was “always so safety conscious”, adding: “He always did a risk assessment. He was always really, really careful.”
She said the wooden pole at the substation ” just looked like it was part of a tree”.
“There was no way that you would look at that and think there is a high voltage electrical box under there,” she said.
” And I can only assume that when he went and looked at it, he must have felt the same thing.
“There was just nothing visible warning you that there was something dangerous.”
Mr Campbell was taken to hospital but could not be saved.
Mrs Campbell said she had received no apology, and that the electricity company “needs to own up and do the right thing, take some responsibility, take some accountability for what they’ve done”.
“You would just never expect anybody to walk out the door… to work and just never see them again,” she said.
In a statement SP Energy Networks said they place “a great deal of importance on promoting a safe system of working internally, with a view to ensuring so far as possible that members of the public are safeguarded against risks to their health and safety.
“We remain saddened by Mr Campbell’s death and send our deepest sympathies to his family.”
