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Disaster Action
Disaster Action is a British charity founded in 1991 by survivors and bereaved relatives of UK and overseas disasters. In the late 1980s, there were a number of serious incidents in which many people died, such as the sinking of the MV Jupiter (1961), Hillsborough, the Herald of Free Enterprise, Lockerbie, the Marchioness, Piper Alpha and UTA Flight 772. Maurice de Rohan from the Herald Families Association realised that the issues the Herald families were experiencing would almost certainly be encountered by others in similar disasters. He, along with like minded individuals, founded the charity. It won a Guardian charity of the year award in 2004 for excellence in its field. Development The organisation evolved and developed through the years with one significant development being the introduction of legislation to provide for remedies against Corporate manslaughter, which culminated with a new law coming into force on 1 April 2008. The charity has also generated income through ...
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MV Jupiter (1961)
MV ''Jupiter'' was a Greek-registered cruise ship that sank on 21 October 1988, within 40 minutes of leaving the Greek port of Piraeus. On board were 391 British schoolchildren and 84 adults on a study cruise and 110 crew. The disaster claimed the lives of one pupil, one teacher and two Greek crew members. The ship ''Jupiter'' was originally known as ''Moledet'' ("Fatherland") and was a passenger ship registered in the port of Haifa in 1961. The 7,810-tonne vessel was built for Zim (Israel Navigation Company Ltd) and sailed regular voyages around the Mediterranean. In September 1970, ''Moledet'' was sold to Epirotiki Line, a Greek shipping company, and renamed ''Jupiter''. Sinking of the ''Jupiter'' On 21 October 1988, 391 schoolchildren aged 13 to 16 and their teachers boarded ''Jupiter'' at the Greek port of Piraeus at the start of a week-long educational cruise around the Mediterranean. Just 15 minutes after leaving port, the ''Jupiter'' was struck by an Italian freight ship ...
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Hillsborough Disaster
The Hillsborough disaster was a fatal human crush during a football match at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, on 15 April 1989. It occurred during an FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest in the two standing-only central pens in the Leppings Lane stand allocated to Liverpool supporters. Shortly before kick-off, in an attempt to ease overcrowding outside the entrance turnstiles, the police match commander, David Duckenfield, ordered exit gate C to be opened, leading to an influx of supporters entering the pens. This resulted in overcrowding of those pens and the crush. With 97 deaths and 766 injuries, it has the highest death toll in British sporting history. Ninety-four people died on the day; another person died in hospital days later, and another victim died in 1993. In July 2021, a coroner ruled that Andrew Devine, who died 32 years after suffering severe and irreversible brain damage on the day, was the 97th victim. The match ...
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Herald Of Free Enterprise
MS ''Herald of Free Enterprise'' was a roll-on/roll-off (RORO) ferry which capsized moments after leaving the Belgian port of Zeebrugge on the night of 6 March 1987, killing 193 passengers and crew. The eight-deck car and passenger ferry was owned by Townsend Thoresen, designed for rapid loading and unloading on the competitive cross-channel route. As was common at the time, it was built with no watertight compartments. The ship left harbour with her bow door open, and the sea immediately flooded the decks; within minutes, she was lying on her side in shallow water. The immediate cause of the capsizing was found to be negligence by the assistant boatswain, who was asleep in his cabin when he should have been closing the bow door. However, the official inquiry placed more blame on his supervisors and a general culture of poor communication in Townsend Thoresen. The vessel was salvaged, put up for sale, and sold to Naviera SA Kingstown on 30 September 1987, renamed ''Flushing Ran ...
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Lockerbie
Lockerbie (, gd, Locarbaidh) is a small town in Dumfries and Galloway, south-western Scotland. It is about from Glasgow, and from the border with England. The United Kingdom Census 2001, 2001 Census recorded its population as 4,009. The town came to international attention in December 1988 when the wreckage of Pan Am Flight 103 crashed there following a terrorism, terrorist bomb attack aboard the flight. Prehistory and archaeology In 2006, ahead of the construction of a new primary and secondary school archaeologists from CFA Archaeology under took excavations. They discovered the remains of a large (27 x 8m) Neolithic British Isles, Neolithic timber hall that dated to somewhere between 3950 BC to 3700 BC. The archaeologists found it was in use for some time as some of the posts had been replaced. Flax seeds were found in the timber hall showing the people were processing flax. This is an extremely rare find with only one other site in Scotland showing evidence of flax produc ...
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Marchioness Disaster
The ''Marchioness'' disaster was a collision between two vessels on the River Thames in London in the early hours of 20 August 1989, which resulted in the deaths of 51 people. The pleasure steamer ''Marchioness'' sank after being hit twice by the dredger ''Bowbelle'' at about 1:46 am, between Cannon Street railway bridge and Southwark Bridge. ''Marchioness'' had been hired for the evening for a birthday party and had about 130 people on board, four of whom were crew and bar staff. Both vessels were heading downstream, against the tide, ''Bowbelle'' travelling faster than the smaller vessel. Although the exact paths taken by the ships, and the precise series of events and their locations, are unknown, the subsequent inquiry considered it likely that ''Bowbelle'' struck ''Marchioness'' from the rear, causing the latter to turn to port, where she was hit again, then pushed along, turning over and being pushed under ''Bowbelle''s bow. It took thirty seconds for ''Marchio ...
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Piper Alpha
Piper Alpha was an oil platform located in the North Sea approximately north-east of Aberdeen, Scotland. It was operated by Occidental Petroleum (Caledonia) Limited (OPCAL) and began production in 1976, initially as an oil-only platform but later converted to add gas production. Piper Alpha exploded and sank on 6 July 1988, killing 165 of the men on board, 30 of whose bodies were never recovered, as well as a further two rescue workers after their rescue vessel, which had been trapped in debris and immobilized, was destroyed by the disintegrating rig. Sixty-one workers escaped and survived. The total insured loss was about £1.7 billion (£ billion in ), making it one of the costliest man-made catastrophes ever. At the time of the disaster, the platform accounted for approximately 10% of North Sea oil and gas production. The accident is the world's worst offshore oil disaster in terms of lives lost and industry impact. The Inquiry blamed it on inadequate maintenance and safet ...
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UTA Flight 772
UTA Flight 772 was a scheduled international passenger flight of the French airline Union de Transports Aériens (UTA) operating from Brazzaville in the People's Republic of the Congo, via N'Djamena in Chad, to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, France, that crashed into the Ténéré desert near Bilma, Niger, on 19 September 1989 with the loss of all 170 people on board, after an in-flight explosion caused by a suitcase bomb. It is the deadliest aviation incident to occur in Niger. Aircraft and crew The aircraft, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30, with American registration serial number 46852, was manufactured in 1973.UTA N54629 (Airfleets)
Retrieved: 20 April 2014.
It was the 125th DC-10 produced, and had accumulated 14,777 flight cycles over 60,276 flight hours at the time of its

Maurice De Rohan
Maurice John de Rohan AO OBE (13 May 1936 – 5 October 2006) was an Australian engineer, former Agent General for South Australia, and nominee for Governor of South Australia. Career Born in Adelaide, Australia, de Rohan graduated from the University of Adelaide in 1960 with a degree in civil engineering. Aged 23 he jointly founded Kinnaird Hill de Rohan and Young (later Kinhill Engineers Pty Ltd) as a partner and then Director. The Company expanded to all other States of Australia and grew to become one of the Australia’s biggest engineering and planning consulting groups. In 1976, after the firm’s joint venture with Llewellyn-Davies Weeks International, de Rohan became deputy chairman and managing director of the London-based firm. He became a founding member of Australian Business in Europe, a director in 1978, and president in 1982-83. He also became a Fellow of the British Institute of Management. The loss of his daughter, Alison, and son-in-law, Francis Gaillard, in ...
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The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Guardian Media Group, owned by the Scott Trust. The trust was created in 1936 to "secure the financial and editorial independence of ''The Guardian'' in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of ''The Guardian'' free from commercial or political interference". The trust was converted into a limited company in 2008, with a constitution written so as to maintain for ''The Guardian'' the same protections as were built into the structure of the Scott Trust by its creators. Profits are reinvested in journalism rather than distributed to owners or shareholders. It is considered a newspaper of record in the UK. The editor-in-chief Katharine Viner succeeded Alan Rusbridger in 2015. Since 2018, the paper's main news ...
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Corporate Manslaughter
Corporate manslaughter is a crime in several jurisdictions, including England and Wales and Hong Kong. It enables a corporation to be punished and censured for culpable conduct that leads to a person's death. This extends beyond any compensation that might be awarded in civil litigation or any criminal prosecution of an individual (including an employee or contractor). The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 came into effect in the UK on 6 April 2008. Theory Clarkson identifies six theories of corporate manslaughter: *Identification doctrine; *Aggregation doctrine; *Reactive corporate fault; *Vicarious liability; *Management failure model; and *Corporate ''mens rea''. Identification doctrine This approach holds that the offence of corporate manslaughter is made out when an individual commits all the elements of the offence of manslaughter and that person is sufficiently senior to be seen as the controlling mind of the corporation. Prior to the Corporate Mansla ...
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Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust
The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (JRCT) is a philanthropic grant making trust that supports work undertaken in the UK and Ireland, and previously South Africa. It is one of three original trusts set up by Joseph Rowntree in 1904. The Trust supports work in five programme areas: peace and security, rights and justice, power and accountability, sustainable future and Northern Ireland. History In 1904, the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (JRCT), along with sister organisations the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, were created by Joseph Rowntree, who gave about a half of his wealth to establish them. The original trustees of the JRCT were: Rowntree, his sons John Wilhelm, Benjamin Seebohm, Joseph Stephenson and Oscar Frederick, and his nephew Arnold Stephenson Rowntree. The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust’s values are rooted in Quakerism. Joseph Rowntree, who was a Quaker, believed that it is only possible to make a lasting difference by a ...
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