Out of control lift kills lift engineer

Date:

4 June 2010

Release No:

COILDN/04-06

A Kent-based lift company has been fined following health and safety failings which led to a self-employed lift engineer being crushed to death.

J. Brown Services Ltd were prosecuted following an investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) after 35-year-old Andy Bates died while completing the installation of a new lift at a site near Oxford Street in Central London.

On 6 December 2005, Mr Bates from Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, was working alone on the lift's wiring while standing on the roof of the lift car at an office building at Woodstock Street, London W1

The cable of a control used to move the lift was severed when it became wrapped around a bolt protruding from the lift shaft wall. This led to a rogue command being sent to the lift's controller causing the lift to start moving upwards.

Mr Bates became trapped between the top of the lift car and the top of the doorway as it travelled upwards, suffering fatal crush injuries.

Neither Mr Bates, nor his assistant Liam Brown, had experience of installing the type of lift control system being fitted at the site.

The Old Bailey heard the main contractor carrying out the work was Swallow Lifts Installations which sub-contracted the work to a specialist lift engineer it had worked with previously. However, due to delays the sub-contractor had to leave the job uncompleted.

Swallow then sub-contracted the completion and testing of the lift to J. Brown Services Ltd who employed Mr Bates to undertake the final phases of work.

The company pleaded guilty to breaching section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. The company was fined a total of £20,000 and ordered to pay costs of £25,000. J Brown Services Ltd has now stopped trading and has limited financial resources.

HSE Inspector Kevin Shorten said:

"The tragic events at Woodstock Street illustrate the critical importance of having sufficient protective features within a control system.

Just one fault sent this lift out of control. Completed lifts have many protective features and this principle cannot be ignored when lifts are being constructed. That is why the permanent car top controls should be used whenever possible, rather than temporary ones."

Notes to editors

1. The Health and Safety Executive is Britain's national regulator for workplace health and safety. It aims to reduce work-related death, injury and ill health. It does so through research, information and advice; promoting training; new or revised regulations and codes of practice; and working with local authority partners by inspection, investigation and enforcement. www.hse.gov.uk
2. Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc 1974 states: It shall be the duty of every employer to conduct his undertaking in such a way as to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that persons not in his employment who may be affected thereby are not thereby exposed to risks to their health or safety.

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Issued on behalf of the Health and Safety Executive by COI News & PR London