UK Athletics and the former head of sport for the World Paralympic Athletics Championships have pleaded not guilty to all charges relating to the death of Paralympian Abdullah Hayayei.
Hayayei, who competed at the 2016 Rio Paralympics, was killed when a throwing cage fell on him during a training session at Newham Leisure Centre in London on July 11 2017. The 36-year-old was practising his shot putting ahead of the World Paralympic Athletics Championships at the time.
Keith Davies, 77, who was head of sport for the event in 2017, has been charged with unlawfully killing Hayayei by gross negligence.
The charge, read out in court on Tuesday at a plea hearing, said this related to “supervising the provision/supply and erection of a discus/shot put cage for use at an organised para-athletics event, a cage which he knew, or ought to have known, was provided/supplied and erected without its said base structure.”
He was also charged with a Health and Safety at Work Act offence, again relating to cages allegedly supplied without their base structures, that was dated between October 1 2012 and July 12 2017.
Davies, who was present at the Old Bailey, pleaded not guilty to both charges.
UK Athletics are accused of corporate manslaughter.
The charge, read out in court, said they “owed a duty of care” to Hayayei and caused his death by a “breach of that duty, a substantial element of the said breach being the way in which the organisation’s activities were managed or organised by its senior management”, namely by providing/supplying a cage that was allegedly without its base structure.
UK Athletics pleaded not guilty to that charge and also pleaded not guilty to a Health and Safety at Work Act offence, dated between October 1 2012 and July 12 2017.
Davies, from Leytonstone in East London, has been granted unconditional bail and that will continue going forward.
A further case management hearing is scheduled for the week of December 12. A trial, which is estimated to take eight weeks, has been fixed for October 12 2026.
(Warren Little/Getty Images)
