UK Athletics has been fined £350,000 after admitting corporate manslaughter over the death of Paralympian Abdullah Hayayei, with a judge describing the tragedy as “wholly avoidable”.
Hayayei, a father of five from the United Arab Emirates, died while preparing to compete at the World Para Athletics Championships in London after a metal throwing cage collapsed during a training session.
The 36-year-old athlete suffered fatal injuries when the 440lb structure toppled over at Newham Leisure Centre in east London on July 11, 2017.
Nearly a decade later, the case has concluded at the Old Bailey, where UK Athletics accepted responsibility for corporate manslaughter and was ordered to pay a £350,000 fine along with £44,000 in costs.
Former championships head of sport Keith Davies also admitted a health and safety offence and was sentenced to a community order requiring 175 hours of unpaid work.
Sentencing the pair, Judge Richard Marks KC said the fatal incident should never have happened.
He described Hayayei’s death as “tragic, untimely and wholly avoidable” and concluded that serious safety failings had contributed to the disaster.
The court heard the throwing cage had been assembled incorrectly and was missing a crucial base plate designed to keep the structure secure.
Those failures left the cage dangerously unstable and vulnerable to collapse.
Judge Marks told Davies that he either knew, or should have known, how important the missing component was to the safety of the equipment.
Referring to an earlier collapse involving an identical cage, he said: “This was an accident which sooner or later was waiting to happen.”
The hearing also featured a powerful victim impact statement from Hayayei’s widow, Badriah, who addressed the court remotely from the UAE.
Former championships head of sport Keith Davies also admitted a health and safety offence and was sentenced to a community order requiring 175 hours of unpaid work
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PAShe spoke movingly about the devastation caused by the loss of her husband and the impact on their five children, who were aged between two and 14 at the time of his death.
“Abdullah was not just a person who passed away,” she said.
“He was a father, a husband with responsibilities, dreams and a future.”
She urged the court to recognise the scale of the tragedy and the consequences for her family.
“My husband went out to represent his country and raise the name of the UAE but he returned as a corpse because of this negligence,” she added.
The court heard Hayayei, who had cerebral palsy and competed in a wheelchair, had been training for the shot put event when disaster struck.
According to evidence presented during the hearing, the cages had originally been used during the London 2012 Olympics before being transferred to UK Athletics.
However, prosecutors said they had never been properly assembled with their base plates attached during the years that followed.
One of the structures had even collapsed previously in 2012, although nobody was injured on that occasion.
Prosecutor John Price KC described the equipment as a longstanding danger.
“It was a perennial hazard, or to use a familiar phrase, an accident waiting to happen,” he told the court.
Hayayei was training under the supervision of UAE coach Ayman Mohamed Ali Ibrahim when the cage suddenly gave way.
In a statement, Ibrahim recalled how strong winds appeared to move the structure moments before it collapsed.
Despite the efforts of coaches, medics and emergency services, Hayayei never regained consciousness and was pronounced dead later that evening.