'Serious deficiency' at church where roller door fell and killed pastor - coroner

A 273kg roller door that killed a West Auckland youth pastor had been slumping for weeks before it fell, a coroner has found.

In inquest findings released today, Coroner Janet Anderson called the church’s failure to treat it as a hazard a "serious deficiency" and said building WOF checks were needed for internal roller doors.

Helen Verry, 44, had been helping set up an overflow café area at Church Unlimited in Glendene on January 30, 2022, when she went to lower the motorised roller grille. The far end tore away from the wall and the whole assembly came down on her, causing fatal head injuries.

Coroner Anderson said the main reason the door had fallen was down to how Scotty Doors, now SDL Group, had installed it as part of an extension at the Te Atatu Rd site in 2009.

A WorkSafe investigation found the coach screws at one end were too short: one having been driven into a gap between two wooden studs and the other sitting so close to the edge of a stud that it split the timber.

That investigation led to Scotty Doors being ordered to pay a total of $145,000 in emotional harm payments to Helen's husband Tim and to three of Helen's siblings. The company was also fined $41,250.

The coroner said Verry had done nothing wrong to cause her death.

"Helen was an innocent victim whose life was tragically cut short through no fault of her own," the coroner said.

Verry was the youngest of 15 children and a sister of former All Black Va'aiga Tuigamala, who died less than a month after Verry.

Anderson found the church could not have reasonably known the door was about to fall, but that the 6.8m-wide door, with its moving parts, electrics and heavy motor, should have been on their radar.

"In my opinion, the failure to identify the door as a potential hazard was a serious deficiency in the operating systems that the Church had in place," she said.

She added listing the door as a hazard would not have necessarily caught the problem in time but would have improved the odds of someone noticing the warning signs.

Anderson said evidence indicated there may be thousands of similar heavy overhead doors nationwide.

Roller doors used as building exits in commercial premises are already part of the building warrant of fitness (BWoF) regime, but internal roller doors and grilles are not.

The coroner recommended the Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment (MBIE) work with councils on law or policy changes needed to bring all roller doors in commercial buildings under the BWoF process.

Anderson also asked MBIE to consider mandating independent checks when large roller doors are installed, recommended specific WorkSafe guidance on roller doors, and called on Auckland Council to review how the church extension gained a code compliance certificate in May 2009.

MBIE told the coroner any change would need to weigh costs, benefits and the wider regulatory framework.

"There is currently no active policy work programme considering legislative or regulatory changes in this area," MBIE said.

Auckland Council has accepted the recommendation to review the consent process. WorkSafe said it would consider guidance, depending on resources and other priorities.

The inquest heard church members had strung fairy lights, baubles and black fabric along the grille in December 2021 for a drive-through Christmas display held due to Covid-19 restrictions.

Photographs taken on December 14 showed the bracket had tipped forward at one end and by December 23 had dropped about 45 degrees. The door drum had jammed against the ceiling bulkhead, which kept the door suspended above head height even though its fittings had failed.

Church staff told the inquest the door worked normally when they lowered it partway to remove the decorations on January 11, 2022. It fell 19 days later, on what appears to have been the next time anyone used it.

The coroner said the damage looked obvious only in hindsight, in enlarged and cropped images, and sat in an awkward corner well above head height. Hundreds of people drove past the display, and nobody reported anything wrong.

“The very fact that so many people did not notice any problems with the door, speaks for itself,” Anderson said.

Church Unlimited corporate services manager Kathleen Woollett, who saw the door fall, told the inquest the church had treated the grille as part of the building, like any other door or window.

Head pastor and board chair Tak Bhana said he had simply assumed “a roller door functions as it should” and accepted the door should have been on the hazard register.

Church security guard Richard Siulepa told the inquest he saw Verry pulling the door’s emergency chain just before it came down. Anderson said Verry was entitled to use it.

“Helen had every right to use the emergency chain and could not possibly have considered that she was placing herself in danger by doing so,” the coroner said.

At the inquest, SDL accepted for the first time a plywood packer had already been fixed to the wall when its installer put the door up. It had earlier suggested someone must have taken the door down, added the packer and reinstalled it, something Anderson said there was no evidence of.

The coroner said people connected to the company had been deeply affected by Verry’s death.

“The evidence indicates that the company has been proactive in changing its approach to quality and safety related matters and I am advised that it is now regarded as a leader in the roller door industry in this respect,” she said.

SDL Group director Graeme Lietz told the inquest the company was an entirely different organisation from the one that installed the church door in 2009.

He said SDL had tightened who was responsible for checking the walls and frames that doors are fixed to, with builders, architects and engineers now part of that process.

The company now places a QR code on the bottom of its doors which links to operating manuals and instructional videos, and has also set up an automatic system to contact buyers about servicing.

Lietz backed mandatory annual servicing of all roller doors and grilles, compulsory inspection of brackets, motors, springs and chains, structural sign-off requirements and industry-wide training.

SDL operations manager Lance Garrett gave the inquest examples of worn shafts, loose fixings and split screens. In one case his staff were called urgently to a public hospital after a door screen split and fell.

He said relying on owners to service doors voluntarily was no longer enough, and that adding them to the BWoF regime would be an “excellent and proportionate step”.

Church Unlimited has since put its external roller doors on a yearly inspection schedule, removed a smaller roller door on the campus and brought in a structural engineer.