The incident at the centre of Mr. Martel?s dismissal from the employment of Somers Construction was a light fitting falling in the atrium of the new Berkeley Institute after it was knocked by scaffolding.

Explaining the circumstances, Mr. Martel said: ?What upset me was that they were trying to find either a scapegoat or some other rational to argue rather than why did the light fixture fall.

?I wanted to know why it fell, not whether it fell this way or that way. If it almost hurt someone I want to find out all the more. These people were not interested in the fact nor did they mention anything about a worker almost being injured by this falling light.

?The fixture fell and missed the worker by an inch, landed on his foot ? luckily he had safety boots on otherwise it would have broken his foot, had it fallen on his head it would have killed him. Picture a child walking by and a light fixture weighing 43Ibs coming down from 20ft and hitting them on the head.?

Mr. Martel was directing a group of workers in the atrium when he took a cell phone call and went outside. He could still see his workers through the glass frontage and became aware of a commotion inside caused by the light falling next to the workers as they moved the scaffolding. ?They said they had barely touched the light and then it had fallen down. That?s when I started to do an investigation and found out that the anchors (of the light) had been improperly installed and they weren?t even into the masonry. They were only in the shallow coating,? said Mr. Martel. This resulted in him sending an e-mail to Jeff Merker, at Somers Construction, asking that the remaining light fittings in the area be ?pull tested? to check if they had been fitted correctly. When he spoke to he said he had still not heard if his concern had been addressed. Ken McClure, of Somers Construction, confirmed yesterday that the light fittings had since been satisfactorily tested. But an investigation into the incident was conducted. He said: ?They were concentrating on how I had described what I had seen. You have to appreciate that when I was describing it I?m outside of the building, no-one asked me where I was when I witnessed it. I was outside so therefore when I?m looking at the scaffolding moving and these guys moving towards my left. When I?m inside and they said ?what did you see?? I said I saw them moving the scaffolding to the left, they said ?No, you?re a liar, it was going to the right?.

?Well, if you are on the other side of the thing of course it is going to go to the right. They said ?We have a video?. Well go ahead and look at the video, I said. When you look at the video did the fitting fall? Isn?t that what we should be talking about?? But Mr. Martel added: ?Prior to that I knew my days were numbered there. I tried to calm the guys down I said ?We have to do our job. They can fire us for it but we have to do our job?.

?They said they were going to fire me with cause and I said I don?t think that?s a good idea. And they agreed that they should maybe pay me my settlement, which they did. And that was the end of it.?

Somers Construction yesterday declined to elaborate on the circumstances surrounding Mr. Martel?s dismissal.