The former chief executive of Pike River Mine, Peter Whittall, will no longer face charges of breaching health and safety rules after the Crown decided the chances of a successful prosecution were unlikely.
Whittall was facing 12 charges brought by the former Department of Labour over his role in the explosion on 9 November 2010, which killed 29 men at the West Coast mine.
Crown lawyer Mark Zarifeh told the Christchurch District Court that much of the evidence gathered by the former Labour Department would have been inadmissable due to many witnesses being overseas and not making themselves available to be cross examined.
Zarifeh, said a trial lasting 16 to 20 weeks in Wellington would also be very expensive and not the best use of limited resources.
Whittall and other directors and officers of Pike River Coal have offered to make a voluntary compensation payment of $3.4 million to the families of the dead and the two men who survived.
