Experience

Mark joined Burgoynes in 1989 and became a Partner in 1995.  He began his engineering career in 1981 with British Aerospace, with whom he completed a technical apprenticeship.  He obtained his degree in engineering from Cambridge University in 1986.  Since 1989 he has been continuously occupied investigating incidents of an engineering nature, fires and explosions, usually investigating the cause of the incident.  He has undertaken over 1000 investigations and has given evidence as an expert witness in civil and criminal courts, and to domestic and international arbitration tribunals.  His evidence has also been considered by a public enquiry.  He has frequently acted as a single joint expert and has given concurrent evidence (‘hot tubbing’).  He is based in the firm’s London office but has previously worked in the Glasgow office.  He has undertaken investigations in Europe, North America, South America, Africa, Asia, Russia, the Caribbean and the Falkland Islands.

The Engineering incidents Mark has investigated include major rail incidents, including site investigations at Ladbroke Grove, Paddington, Hatfield, Selby, Potters Bar and Ely; derailments in tunnel boring works; accidents involving power-generation equipment, including gas turbines, internal combustion engines, wind turbines and fuel cells; accidents with cranes, lifts and work-access equipment; accidents on fairground rides; accidents with powered gates; hydraulic system failures; and incidents arising from defective systems of work, defective safety interlocking systems, defective design, structural collapse, and fatigue and corrosion failures.  

Mark’s involvement with crane accident investigations is extensive, covering tower cranes, road and rail-mounted cranes, crawler cranes and travelling gantry cranes; as well as a range of access equipment, such as mobile elevated working platforms (MEWPs), window cleaning cradles and various hydraulically operated systems.  He was involved in numerous prominent incidents, including the Canary Wharf crane collapse, the Avonmouth Bridge gantry collapse and the Durrington School crane collapse.

He has extensive experience of incidents involving fluid transport systems, including water distribution systems, hydraulics systems, gas distribution systems, cryogenic transportation, valve and pipe-fitting failures.

His experience also extends to fires involving large industrial plant, power generation and distribution equipment, road and rail vehicles, aircraft, ships and domestic appliances, including situations where recalls have been initiated.  He has investigated incidents arising from the physical and chemical properties of substances, the mechanical properties of structures, fluid dynamics and thermodynamic phenomena.  This includes explosions resulting from the combustion of vapours and gases, and from hydraulic, steam and other ‘mechanical’ causes. As well as explosions, Mark has also investigated the mathematically more challenging failure of storage vessels under vacuum.

Mark has investigated marine fires involving hydrocarbon fuels, reefer cargoes, the spontaneous ignition of oil-soaked lagging, charcoal, fish-meal and calcium hypochlorite, including containerised cargoes.   Heat-transfer calculations have been undertaken to analyse many situations, including the heating of drums in a container next to a heated tank, solar heating, the temperature profile resulting from welding, the effect of condensation, the cooling of glass in a manufacturing facility following a machinery breakdown, and temperature variations during the discharging of ship tanks.  He has advised ship operators in connection with the dispersion of hazardous chemicals and combustion products in fire-fighting run-off water. 

Many of Mark’s investigations have focussed on Public Liability and Product Liability issues.  As well as investigating on the instructions of parties involved in commercial litigation, Mark has been retained – and given evidence – in numerous cases where accidents at work have led to prosecutions for manslaughter or breaches of Health and Safety legislation or other legislation enforced by the safety regulatory authorities, including the HSE, EHOs, the ORR and the CAA.  He has occasionally advised in murder cases where mechanical issues, such as the motion of projected or falling objects is germane.