Construction company fined after worker dies in Dundee

HSE/SCO/120/2009 8 June 2009

A Scottish construction company and one of its directors have been convicted of failing to ensure proper health and safety standards after the death of an employee.

Andrezej Freitag, a 53-year-old from Poland, fell nearly three metres down an exhaust shaft at a block of flats being built on Arbroath Road, Dundee. The incident, on 29 May 2008, happened because there was not a robust barrier on the edge of the shaft. Mr Freitag later died from his injuries in Ninewells Hospital.

At Dundee Sheriff Court today, Discovery Homes (Scotland) Limited of High Street Kinross, was fined £5,000 after pleading guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.

Mr Richard Lionel John Pratt, a Director of the same company, who also performed the duties of site manager, was fined £4,000 after pleading guilty to breaching Section 37(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. This is only the second successful prosecution of a company director in Scotland in six years for a breach of health and safety legislation.

Health and Safety Executive (HSE) Inspector Murray Provan is now warning construction companies about the risk to their employees working at height.

"This accident was entirely foreseeable and preventable," Mr Provan said.

"Mr Freitag died because his employer and the site manager failed to do enough about the risks associated with working at height.

"Mr Pratt used the type of barrier normally found at a roadworks site as protection at the top of the shaft, which is totally unsuitable for that purpose.

"He was in charge from the beginning of works and the standard of health and safety management was Mr Pratt's responsibility. The company's culpability is wholly attributable to his neglect."

Notes to editors

1. Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 states: "It shall be the duty of every employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all his employees"
2. Section 37(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 states: "Where an offence under any of the relevant statutory provisions committed by a body corporate is proved to have been committed with the consent or connivance of, or to have been attributable to any neglect on the part of, any director, manager, secretary or other similar officer of the body corporate or a person who was purporting to act in any such capacity, he as well as the body corporate shall be guilty of that offence and shall be liable to be proceeded against and punished accordingly.

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Issued on behalf of the Health and Safety Executive by COI News and PR Scotland.