HSE/NW/101/07 15 November 2007

HSE warns employers to ensure they comply with HSE enforcement notices following prosecution of company director

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has today warned employers that they must comply with enforcement notices or risk prosecution.  The warning follows a HSE prosecution of a Burnley company director after he contravened a Prohibition Notice requiring him to implement a safe system for working at height.

Shaun Michael Cosgrove of Gorple Road, Worsthorne, Burnley, was fined a total of £1,500 and ordered to pay costs of £3,500 at Reedley Magistrates’ Court, after pleading guilty to one breach of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and two breaches of the Work at Height Regulations 2005.

During a site visit on 1 November 2005, HSE inspectors found Mr Cosgrove and three others working on the flat roof of his company’s premises at Computatune Car Sales Ltd in North Valley Road, Colne, without a safe system of work in place. He was issued with a Prohibition Notice requiring him to stop all work immediately.

HSE Inspector Phil Strickland said: “Mr Cosgrove is a director of the company and was among a group of men carrying out work at a height in an unsafe manner. There was no edge protection, no means of preventing objects falling from the roof and no segregation from members of the public who could have been hit by falling materials.

“Because of this, HSE served a Prohibition Notice requiring proper precautions to be implemented but Mr Cosgrove failed to comply with the notice, putting himself and his colleagues, plus members of the public at sustained risk.”

Notes to editors

1. Regulation 6(3) of the Work at Height Regulations states: “Where work is carried out at height, every employer shall take suitable and sufficient measures to prevent, so far as reasonably practicable, any person falling a distance liable to cause personal injury.”
2. Regulation 10(1) of the Work at Height Regulations states: “Every employer shall, where necessary to prevent injury to any person, take suitable and sufficient steps to prevent, so far as reasonably practicable the fall of any material or object”.
3. Under Section 22 of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, HSE inspectors have the power to serve prohibition notices where they are of the opinion that work activities give rise to a risk of serious personal injury.  A prohibition notice specifies the activities which must be stopped and may set out how the matters giving rise to the notice should be remedied.  All notices are subject to a right of appeal.
4. Section 33(1) (g) of the Act states that it is a offence to contravene a prohibition notice.
5. More information on falls from height can be found at HSE’s website: www.hse.gov.uk/falls/index.htm

For further information

Clive Naish, Regional Information Officer
Tel: 0161 952 4517

Public enquiries

HSE's InfoLine: 0845 3450055
Caerphilly Business Park, Caerphilly CF83 3GG

HSE information and press releases can be accessed on the Internet: http://www.hse.gov.uk

Issued on behalf of HSE by Government News Network North West.