£466,000 fines after woman killed in lift

UK HEALTH club chain Holmes Place was fined almost £250,000 yesterday after admitting a young banker was crushed to death by a gym lift in an accident that was waiting to happen.

Too much had gone wrong for too long with the lift at Broadgate Health Club, in the City of London, before it dropped on 12 March, 2003, killing Polish-born Katarzyna Woja, Southwark Crown Court in London was told.

Holmes Place and ThyssenKrupp Elevator UK, one of the world's leading lift firms, were fined 233,000 each over health and safety breaches in relation to the 32-year-old's death.

In a victim impact statement read to the court, Ms Woja's widower, Nebojsa Dorontic, 39, said she was a "very intelligent and charming young lady".

On being told his wife was dead, Mr Dorontic said: "I felt numb. I could not believe what had happened.

"I guess that I was looking for a glimmer of hope.

"I did not want to accept what I had been told but, after a few minutes, the news sunk in. I was distraught."

He went on: "I not only lost Katarzyna, I also lost a life partner, a wife and a true friend. "Katarzyna's tragic death at the young age of only 32 prevented us from starting our family."

Serbian-born Mr Dorontic, who runs a recruitment company and lives in south-west London, said his wife was working for global management group Invesco and had been a "high flyer" at the time of her death.