Audi apprentice in Reading - comments from coroner - what are your thoughts?

I think its quite a risk to substitute ones own feelings for those of a Coroner who has heard all the details and is acting within the guidelines of the law...in the words of the report

"Mr Cheese's family asked for neglect from Audi to form part of the coroner's conclusion but Mr Bedford said the legal requirement for this had not been met."

Clearly this was a very troubled young man who had many things going on in his life - equally the paper could have majored on another ex serviceman taking their own life

It is a minor point but this young man worked for the Sytner Group and not Audi.
There are plenty of organisation which unofficially condone 'horse play' and 'banter' right up to the moment things go wrong when they are shocked to find out such things happen and seek to improve their policies.
I do however, fully agree with Keith, we are not in full possession of the facts of this case and so whilst the obvious anguish of the parents is understandable, it does not mean the coroner made a mistake.

In my (extensive) experience, motor trade fitters and their managers / proprietors are on the very far to extreme end of the spectrum when it comes to failure to adopt anything like 21st century employment practices - equality of opportunity etc. usually being an alien concept there.

So, bullying / harassment / beasting / brutal and degrading 'initiation ceremonies' / etc are I'm sure still commonplace within many garages: big ones with an established cadre of apprentices are probably far worse than Fred and just one apprentice in his shed.

Things are changing, but those presently in command will need to be replaced by the next generation before significant progress can be made.

(Similar applies to the whole of what's left of the engineering sector, but garages tend to be particularly bad)

ps

once upon a time, I was charged with encouraging local garages to take on at least some female apprentices - not exactly 'mssion impossible' but something of a challenge!

In my (extensive) experience, motor trade fitters and their managers / proprietors are on the very far to extreme end of the spectrum when it comes to failure to adopt anything like 21st century employment practices - equality of opportunity etc. usually being an alien concept there.

So, bullying / harassment / beasting / brutal and degrading 'initiation ceremonies' / etc are I'm sure still commonplace within many garages: big ones with an established cadre of apprentices are probably far worse than Fred and just one apprentice in his shed.

Things are changing, but those presently in command will need to be replaced by the next generation before significant progress can be made.

(Similar applies to the whole of what's left of the engineering sector, but garages tend to be particularly bad)

ps

once upon a time, I was charged with encouraging local garages to take on at least some female apprentices - not exactly 'mssion impossible' but something of a challenge!