This week, two senior members from the company where Brook Palmer once worked were finally named as those responsible for hiding evidence of a workplace accident. It happened days before a more serious accident left him with brain damage. For the first time, he shares his fight for justice.

If it weren’t for a gourmet sandwich, Brook Palmer might not be alive.

The young apprentice had been gleefully telling a colleague at the marine engineering firm they worked at that his partner had made lunch for him, and he’d been looking forward to eating it.

So when the 18-year-old didn’t show up for lunch, his colleague knew to go looking for him.

Four years on, it’s Palmer’s last memory of that day - the three-decker avocado, bacon, lettuce, tomato sandwich with fancy relish.

Brook Palmer, 23, and his mother, Paula Palmer, have been fighting for accountability in the wake of a workplace accident in July 2019 which left Brook with a long-term brain injury. Photo / Tessa Jaine TopSouthMedia

The colleague found him lifeless at the bottom of the boat and immediately called for help from a cellphone.

“I believe my son is alive because of his friend and that earlier conversation between the two regarding a planned lunchtime meeting,” his mother Paula Palmer says.

“He was saved by a sandwich, and the fact someone got up from their break to go looking.”

Brook had worked at Nelson-based industrial engineering firm Aimex for only about six months when a workplace accident cut short his ambition of a career as a marine engineer.

The effects of that day on July 29, 2019, still linger in Brook’s tired expression, and in his mother’s anger.

The past few years have been tough for Paula, most recently because of a severe storm last year that left her Nelson hilltop home badly damaged.

The land beneath it is still sliding; pulling the deck further away from where it was wrenched off when the hill slumped.

But she says it pales in comparison with the call she got that fateful day of Brook’s brush with death while she was on holiday in Australia.

She missed the first call but sensed something urgent when a second one came in from the company’s general manager at the time.

She lost her breath in shock when told Brook had been taken to hospital after an accident at work, but regained her wits and got on the next plane home.

Paula says she was told his workplace thought he had fallen.

He had been using a volatile brake cleaner to clean the engine bay of a large catamaran and was unfamiliar, as it turned out, with how to use it safely because, according to WorkSafe NZ, the company had failed to develop a safe system of work relating to hazardous substances.

It had also failed to properly supervise, train and instruct its workers on working with hazardous substances.

For this, Aimex was sentenced in July 2021. It received a fine of $250,000 and was ordered to pay $65,000 in reparation and $1434 in costs after admitting a charge under sections of the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015.

What Brook and others didn’t know was that just days before his accident another worker had also been overcome by fumes carrying out the same task.

‘It was like he had dementia’

“Employee X” - as he was named in court documents - had been cleaning the engine room of the same vessel Brook had been working on with brake cleaner when he was overcome with fumes.

Fortunately, he recognised the symptoms and was able to get himself out of the situation immediately.

Employee X recorded it on his timesheet that day, July 24, 2019, stating he had felt “light-headed”, and told the company’s health and safety officer, who completed an incident report which recorded the details of what had happened.

None of this was known to Brook as he eased himself down into the hull and began using the same brake cleaner five days later.

By the time he was found, he was minutes from dying, Paula told the police in a witness statement that followed.

“Thank God I never saw that,” she says, still scarred by the memory; partly through guilt at not being home when it happened and from the battle that followed for accountability.

“It just grieves me so much that we could have lost him, and it’s a miracle he’s alive. I’m grateful to God every day that he’s with us.”

Brook, now 23, was eventually diagnosed with severe hypoxic brain injury. He remembers only what he was told afterwards.

Hypoxic brain injuries are described as being the result of restricted oxygen supply to the brain, which causes the gradual death and impairment of brain cells.

He was in hospital overnight before being sent home, only to collapse, Paula says, and return to hospital, where the hypoxic injury was eventually diagnosed.

She says Brook’s memory was still only 30 per cent recovered 18 months after the accident, despite extensive follow-up care and rehabilitation.

“His future was so bright, and I lost my son for some time. It was like he had dementia – like he had the memory of a goldfish.

“You’d be in the room, walk out and walk back in and he’d go, ‘Oh, hi’. Old family friends – he didn’t know who they were.”

He hasn’t held down a full-time job since because fatigue still hits him.

Brook says had he finished his apprenticeship, he would have been in his first year out at sea by now, working on boats.

Instead, he survives on ACC, $50,000 reparation he got in 2021, and support from family, including Paula who runs her own business in Nelson, and his partner - the same person who made the sandwich - with whom he lives.

Paula says she grieves mostly over his loss of potential.

“Brook had a bright career ahead of him and he loved his work. He didn’t deserve this.”

The chief executive and former health and safety manager of Nelson-based marine engineering firm Aimex have admitted lying about a workplace accident a few days before a similar accident left a worker seriously injured. Photo / Tracy Neal

Paula says brain injuries are often an invisible curse, as victims and supporters can struggle to make others believe they’re real.

“With brain injuries, often people don’t understand. Brook once said to me: ‘Mum, do I need to wrap my head up in a bandage, so people know something is wrong with me?’

“He’s been through so much mentally, yet we’re not seen as victims.”

‘Cover-up’

During the investigation into Brook’s accident, behind the scenes, and leading up to WorkSafe laying the charge, evidence of the earlier accident involving Employee X was concealed and later destroyed.

It’s been argued by the Crown that Aimex was trying to lessen the penalty it faced.

Lawyers for the Crown said later that they believed the penalty handed out over Brook’s accident was less than it might have been had the court known the full facts.

During its investigation into Brook’s accident, WorkSafe claimed details of the accident involving Employee X were “repeatedly denied by the business owners”.

The Nelson District Court has now heard that evidence later came to light showing key documents were destroyed to cover up the previous incident.

Steven Patrick John Sullivan, the managing director and one-third shareholder of Aimex, and his brother, William Mansfield Trevor Sullivan, the former health and safety manager, have now pleaded guilty to criminal charges after a police investigation into what happened.

William pleaded guilty to making a false statement and Steve to wilfully attempting to pervert the course of justice.

William Sullivan was convicted after his admission at a separate hearing last month.

Despite efforts by WorkSafe to get to the bottom of what it had heard, but couldn’t prove, the evidence came to light only when someone brought in by Aimex to review its health and safety procedures started asking questions.

The man, known as “Mr B” in court records, is former Port Nelson chief executive Martin Byrne.

Byrne, who has agreed to be named by NZME, arrived as a consultant and was later appointed as Aimex’s chief operating officer but left soon after, in what were mysterious circumstances but which are now clear.

Martin Byrne, named as 'Mr B' in court documents, has been credited by the Palmers for his courage in coming forward, which led to the conviction of senior Aimex figures on criminal charges.

It was after his appointment to the senior role in July 2021 that, according to a Crown summary of facts, Byrne became aware of what he describes as a “number of concerning circumstances around the destruction of the Employee X incident report and actions taken intending to cover up the incident in order not to disclose the matter to WorkSafe NZ”.

As stated in the summary, Byrne was astounded by the discovery, including an admission from Steve Sullivan that “once the document was destroyed it never existed”.

He immediately quit and on legal advice he submitted a Protected Disclosure Statement to WorkSafe, recording his inquiries and admissions made to him.

The following month, the police began an investigation into the allegation under the operation code name Op Subak.

They found a saved copy of Employee X’s incident report at the home of a former employee, and on the same day they seized the original copy of the employee’s timesheet, on which he was said to have noted the incident.

Byrne says it’s pleasing to see some form of positive outcome for the Palmer family.

Paula credits him with helping them find a way forward.

“Marty has been amazing, absolutely. He’s really the hero in this story because without him the truth never would have come out.

“I had real concerns for the safety of other kids working there but when Marty joined the company I was confident that change around the culture of workplace safety would happen.”

‘I wanted New Zealand to know their names’

Aimex is no stranger to headlines. In October last year, questions were raised about whether a donation from the Aimex Group to former NZ First MP Shane Jones’ 2019 election campaign influenced a Provincial Growth Fund grant to the company.

The Aimex Group is listed as having made a $5000 donation to Jones about a year before it was announced an upgrade to the Nelson Slipway, a project Aimex was a partner in, would receive $9.8 million from the Provincial Growth Fund (PGF).

Steven and William Sullivan have fought to keep their names suppressed since they first appeared in court last year on the police charges.

NZME and Open Justice were parties to challenging suppression, which was lifted at a hearing last November, but immediately reimposed when the Sullivans lodged an appeal.

They later withdrew the appeal, but they still couldn’t be named until suppression lapsed on Monday, just days after an announcement that resource consent to upgrade the slipway had been lodged, with building to start in June.

Nelson MP Rachel Boyack is now urging the company to review its management structure and provide the community with an assurance that strong leadership and management will be in place at Aimex.

She says what happened was a serious matter, especially since it involved one of the company’s directors and its former health and safety manager.

“Aimex is an important company for the Nelson economy and provides a significant number of jobs in the region, as well as supporting our flagship oceans and fisheries industries.”

For Paula, seeing them named is the justice she sought above most else, but the fight has cost her some friends and relationships with family.

“I’ve not been able to let it go - I didn’t want to let it go because I think Brook has been the forgotten one.

“I wanted New Zealand to know their [the Sullivans’] names. They’re worried about their reputation and future but what about my son’s?”

What doesn’t sit well with Brook is the scant reference in any of the legal arguments that, in his opinion, his injuries might well have been prevented, had the company dealt with the first incident.

“I obviously don’t feel very good about it.

“The outcome might have been very different, and it doesn’t feel very nice to go through all that court stuff to hear they’d been lying about it.”

William and Steven Sullivan are due to be sentenced in July.

The brothers were approached for comment via their respective lawyers. William Sullivan has not responded but lawyer Michael Vesty who acts for Steve Sullivan said that while the matter remains before the court, no comment will be made except to say that Mr Sullivan has accepted responsibility for his part in this matter.

When WorkSafe prosecutes

Over the past five years, WorkSafe NZ has brought 208 prosecutions against companies and organisations for breaches of the Health and Safety at Work Act.

Most have led to fines being imposed by a court, including one so far this year.

A company can be fined up to a maximum of $1.5 million, or an individual entity known as a Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking (PCBU) up to $300,000.

The maximum penalty doubles if there’s “knowledge-based offending” involved, and prison is also an option in sentencing at this level of offending.

In the wake of events involving WorkSafe charges laid against Aimex, followed by criminal charges against its head boss and former health and safety manager, WorkSafe warned businesses that anyone who tried to obstruct, cover up or manipulate evidence or situations would be met with serious consequences.

“In this incident, WorkSafe was already actively involved when the documents were destroyed... we applaud the police for prosecuting such a serious matter, as well as the people who came forward with information.”

WorkSafe encouraged anyone who saw unsafe work to raise it with them.