Radiohead ask those behind the Toronto stage collapse to apologise

Radiohead have asked the people behind the 2012 stage collapse in Toronto, which killed their drum technician Scott Johnson, to apologise to his family and friends and to the crew who survived. Their statement went up on Twitter on Tuesday 5 November. NME has the full statement. It is time for those others responsible to finally and publicly admit their part in this terrible incident.¹

Johnson was 33 when the stage roof fell at Downsview Park on 16 June 2012, before a Radiohead show. In April a Toronto inquest jury returned accidental death, which the band called frustratingly insufficient. On 24 October the coroner at the inquest in Doncaster, Johnson's home town, found that poor technical advice on the design and construction, and building methods she called wholly inadequate, brought the roof down.

Everyone accepts that no one meant Scott to die, the band wrote, but only Dale Martin, who owns the staging company Optex, has taken any ownership of his role. Martin said as much at the Toronto inquest in the spring. The system failed. Not just the truss. My people. Me. I'm responsible.¹

Phil Selway told CBC News the statement was, in some ways, the band's last chance to speak about it, after a very long process for Scott's parents. An honest response, he said, would feel as though it was honouring Scott's memory.³

Johnson's parents, Ken and Sue Johnson, said the same day that no one responsible has apologised to them, and that the companies and the engineer who designed and built the stage should own their role in public. Ken Johnson, speaking by phone from Doncaster, said he had hoped for apologies from day one, when they would have meant more, and none has come. He welcomed the Doncaster finding. It's the first time anybody has been bold enough to say what everybody's thought all along.¹