Two Cornish companies fined after fall through fragile roof light

Date:

1 July 2010

Release No:

813

Two companies have been fined after a worker was injured falling through a roof light causing a fractured vertebra and narrowly missing machinery blades following a prosecution brought by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

Adam Phillips Plant Hire and Contractors Ltd of Laity Moor, Ponsanooth pleaded guilty to an offence under the Health and Safety at Work Act by failing to ensure the safety of employees by not providing a safe system for working on a roof.

The company was fined £4,000 with £1,694 costs.

New Generation Daffodils of Crowan, near Camborne, pleaded guilty to an offence under the Health and Safety at Work Act by failing to ensure that work at height was properly planned and appropriately supervised.

The company was fined £1,500 with £1,634 costs.

Adam Phillips Plant Hire was contracted by New Generation Daffodils to repair storm damaged roofs at their premises at Dixcarte, Crowan and work began on 2 May 2008.

The work did not include the use of edge protection, appropriate crawling boards or measures to prevent falls.

At the time of the accident the repair work was already completed, however an airline had been left on another roof which was made of metal profiled roofing sheets.

Adam Phillip's employee, Daniel Ekers, walked along the metal roof to collect the air line. He began to pull the airline back to the compressor. A fragile rooflight on the metal roof was weathered and appeared similar in colour to the metal sheets.

Mr Ekers stepped on the fragile rooflight and fell through it 5 metres to the ground. He landed on some harvesting equipment inside the building. He narrowly missed landing on the blades of the equipment and sustained a fractured vertebra. He was taken to hospital and when discharged, received treatment over several weeks

HSE inspector, Barry Trudgian, said: "Despite the risks of roof work near fragile materials being well known, fatalities and serious injuries still occur. Risk assessment should always be suitable and sufficient. When applied to roofwork, a high risk activity, this is especially important. There is a wealth of free guidance available on the HSE website."

Notes to editors

1. Adam Phillips Plant Hire and Contractors Ltd pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1)(a) of the Health & Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 in that: "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." The company also pleaded guilty to / was found guilty of section 3(1) of the Act, in that they failed to conduct their undertaking to ensure so far as is reasonably practicable that persons, not in their employment, were not exposed to risks to their health and safety.
2. New Generation Daffodils Ltd pleaded guilty to a breach of section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act, in that they failed to conduct their undertaking to ensure so far as is reasonably practicable that persons, not in their employment, were not exposed to risks to their health and safety.
3. Further guidance on health and safety issues relating to safety when working at height can be found on the HSE website at: http://www.hse.gov.uk/falls/index
4. The court also ordered each defendant to pay a separate £15 victim surcharge, the proceeds of which will be spent on services for victims and witnesses.
5. 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. http://www.hse.gov.uk/

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Issued on behalf of the Health and Safety Executive by COI News and PR South West