A WORKSAFE inspector who helped seize explosives from Derrinallum bomber Glenn Sanders said it would have taken over a week to properly search just one of the sheds on his property.
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The coronial inquest into Mr Sanders’ death in a series of explosions in April 2014 heard that Worksafe confiscated explosives from Mr Sanders’ farm and suspended his licence to use explosives on September 16, 2013.
However Worksafe inspector Allison Dennis told the inquest that “due to the volume of clutter from items and debris in this area I was unable to complete a detailed search”.
“(Mr Sanders’) workshop would have taken over a week to completely go through in great detail, to comprehensively move and pull things out,” Ms Dennis said.
Ms Dennis, a fellow Worksafe inspector, and four police officers attended Mr Sanders’ property following a phone call from Leading Senior Constable Scott Simpson of Lismore police, who had received “complaints about explosion in the Derrinallum area” which were believed to have come from Mr Sanders’ property. LSC Simpson also had concerns about Mr Sanders’ mental health.
“He wasn’t getting worse, but I didn’t think he should be handling explosives – not that I thought he would deliberately do something or hurt anyone, but that he might accidentally do something,” LSC Simpson said.
The Worksafe inspectors and police spent two hours at Mr Sanders’ property and confiscated quantities of ammonium nitrate, detonators, safety fuse, detonation cord, and other items associated with explosives.
Mr Sanders was permitted to have all the items on his property except for the ammonium nitrate.