The construction manager received a suspended sentence for the collapse of a house in Tábor

Tábor - The Tábor District Court today imposed a conditional sentence in the case of the residential building collapse in Tábor last year. The thirty-three-year-old chief construction manager Miloš Filip, who oversaw the construction of a multifunctional complex on the adjacent plot, was sentenced for general endangerment to 16 months in prison, with a conditional suspension for 28 months. According to the court, the man did not follow the project documentation during the construction of the neighboring building and did not call for a structural engineer.
    The ruling is not final. Defense attorney Ivo Danielowitz immediately appealed the court's decision. "In my opinion, the guilt is not solely on my client, and his level of culpability is not so high that he should actually bear criminal liability," the attorney told reporters.
    According to Judge Petr Černý, however, the guilt is clearly with the construction manager. The designers of the multifunctional building conducted all possible surveys, but it was not determined whether the neighboring building had a basement. They therefore suggested conducting probes to the foundations of the adjacent building and calling for a structural engineer. According to Černý, Filip wanted to save time and construction costs, so he ordered digging at the foundations of the house without conducting probes. After undermining the foundations, the gable wall and part of the house collapsed. Ten people were endangered in the building. "A ban on activity is unnecessary, it would have almost a devastating effect on the accused," Černý stated in the justification of the ruling.
    A part of the house on Jeronýmova Street, owned by Rybářství Tábor, collapsed on May 4 last year. No one was injured; all residents managed to escape in time. The tragedy was averted by sixteen-year-old resident Miloš Paťha, who noticed a crack in the wall, rang all the doorbells, and tenants rushed outside. Within minutes, part of the house collapsed. Fourteen people lived in the house, including six children.
    One wall and part of the apartments in all three floors of the building collapsed. The damage to the collapsed house, which was built in the 1930s and renovated about 25 years ago, exceeded 3.8 million crowns. The fall of the house also damaged the equipment in the apartments for 773,000 crowns.
    The house fell during the construction of a multipurpose building on the neighboring plot. The builders mistakenly believed from the project that the entire residential building had a basement. When excavating by the foundations of the house, the less reinforced gable wall collapsed. While digging near the gable wall, the contractors for the neighboring construction asked for a structural engineer a day before the building's collapse but continued the excavation of the foundations the next day. Proper reinforcement of the wall would have delayed the neighboring construction by months and increased costs by several million.